"I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun . . . I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process — an integral function of the universe."
"I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun . . . I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process — an integral function of the universe."
Nebraska Lecture Outline + Notes
TGAUU: A Script (Draft?)
I have been spending a lot of time with my old work. I have been asking a lot of questions, interrogating these old forms, old essays, old ideas.
I'm not totally sure where it has gotten me so far, but, let me run through a few themes that are definitely recurring.
I like to use computers
I like to make art
I don't care if my definition of design isn't society's?
How can you as a cultural creator do something?
I'm terrible at real activism.
???
Just start at the present?
So doing these things in different ways, it IS important. It shows another way forward, or potentially MANY other ways forward. If we go back to this future speculation diagram, (show the FutureCone), then we see that as potential futures spread out, if we start aiming way outside of the probable, way further out into possible, or even impossible, we start to affect WHAT IS POSSIBLE. So, thinking through these things in whatever utopian lenses you have HELPS everyone else... ???
Also Created This Day:
Also Created This Day:
I have been going through a lot of old work, old writing, old lectures, just all of my past “work.”
What kind of useful revisionist history can I tell about all these pieces that a) make a useful connection between all of my work, and b) create some new understanding...
Is one of the connections my own understanding, my interest in seeing how things are connected, seeing where I can better learn? Is the connection an exploration of various technologies? is the connection an ever growing desire to access more tools?
Also Created This Day:
Workshop ideas for University of Utah Visit Ideas
Clearly articulate due dates and expecations.
An experimental, expressive graphic exploration that responds to the source material (Drawdown or UN Goals!?)
Two posters that create a dialogue about your topic and that challenge your audience to think critically.
Create a typology study:
patterns, etc that illustrate the topic. ** What literal objects represent your topic? ** What metaphors apply to your topic? ** What possible allusions can you make in design, art, architecture, literature, history, etc, to your topic? ** What personal influences and interests would you like to combine with your topic? * Present as a PDF slide show with your words, aphorisms or quotes and image research. The last page should be a bibliography of your sources.
Create 12 experimental compositions
Create a poster series
Critique: Posters due
– Present however necessary for your poster concepts.
Workshop Ideas for University of Utah Visit Ideas
Also Created This Day:
Ward Cunningham and friends deliberately stripped the wiki of many features that were considered integral to document collaboration in the past. Instead of attributing each change of the document to a certain person, they removed much of the visual representation of ownership. They made the content ego-less and time-less. They decided it wasn’t important who wrote the content or when it was written. And that has made all the difference. This decision fostered a shared sense of community and was a key ingredient in the success of Wikipedia.
Call with Henry Becker
Conversation with Byron Anway
How do you start with a source, and then how do you make it your own.
So they've been doing some cool things already
Relief imagery?
So they are watching the videos
And they are documenting a lot of work so that they make a community library of content.
They are making a remix!
some sort of visual remix.
Sampling from the imagery of their peers to create something new.
One way that this is easy is to think about translating to a new medium or dimension.
show the imagery that you use. as a starter presentation.
Tuesday group: almost all other majors; Thursday group is all graphic designers
They do all these other writing exercises... generative self investigations. Can we use these in some way?
So they have all this source material, how can they say what they want so the resulting thing IS theirs???
Here are musical riffs I like, and I want to make this a dance song... so here's how I speed up and cut up and pitch shfit and loop... what are the equivalents in visual form making?
Also Created This Day:
Okay, I am going to do something here again everyday. I am going to find random things in my are.na sustainability and design channels, things that can work like prompts. I'll then write several words on that prompt… not sure if I set a word limit, or a time limit. We'll see how the first couple of days/weeks go. March, April, and May were real rough — hopefully things go better moving forward!
To utilize the triple bottom line as an effectiveness judgement, you first need to know what the triple bottom line is. This is in general, people planet profit – social sustainability, environmental sustainability, economic sustainability — trying to gauge sustainability by how it functions in all these spheres, not just one. So effective design then must be design that is economically, socially AND environmentally sustainable. (viable?).
Yeah great. But wtf. What does this actually mean! I've been saying this and thinking about it for over a decade. How does this help anyone? how does this help a designer?
Typically, design's effectiveness is ONLY measured via its economic viability. Does this cost too much? Is this expensive to produce? Does this designer charge too high a rate? whats the ROI? what did I make having spent this design budget? how many new customers did this mailer generate? etc.
Well, the triple bottom line would say, no more. You cannot ONLY judge "success" of a design on these economic metrics – does it generate a lot of new leads BUT ALSO generate a lot of new carbon pollution? well, that's ineffective design! did we make a lot of books at the cost of slave labor in an overseas printing facility that also pollutes the surrounding landscape with heavy metals and VOCs? BAD DESIGN!
The goal here is to migrate the thinking around what "good design" is – there is good design and bad design; instead of good "normal" design and then some other kind of sustainable design and then maybe bad "normal" design… ANYWAY. We should have "Good Design" > design that is socially, environmentally, and economically concerned, and then bad design – design that is only concerned with one of these things…
How does this move us to a different paradigm for teaching design? for making design? for evaluating design? How does this get us away from pure aesthetic judgements of "quality" in a design? Does this allow for other concepts than pure formalism in the discussion?
How are other industries or companies using the triple bottom line effectively? where and how else do I research this? how can this be a selling point to a client? how to market oneself this way? triple bottom line designer? does that bring me new clients?
What is social sustainability? how does one design for it? do the precious plastics things fit into this? is collaborating with the united workers, with the Zero Waste people, is that socially sustainable? Does finding clients that are doing this stuff the right way for a designer to get into this?
There are some good questions – what is a designer to do? find new clients? find new projects? or bring new thinking and tools to all the old projects? Can you do this AND work with everyone you used to? does some value shifting have to happen and then suddenly you are in a different place? a different space? and you can't work with or communicate effectively with those from before (_Everything is Fucked_ has something about this; newtons laws sections… didn't highlight while reading will have to go back!?).
What is effective design? we have to define that too? When is a design effective? I guess it depends on what the design is for. A design that causes the intended behavior change is effective. A design that communicates the intended message to the intended audience is effective. Using the triple bottom line gives you some external objective constraints to help measure this no? Behavior changes, messages, things that harm social constructs or environmental systems in the name of economic "gain", these can no longer be effective with this criteria.
Side note: how to use tiddly wiki or roam to help with this? how to insert footnotes, references, etc?
How might design pay more attention to basic needs like housing, mobility, clothes, food, and water? what does "design for better housing" look like? how about "design for improved water quality" or "design for improved water access"? Are these the kinds of things that are enabled, the kinds of design problem seeking that is unlocked, once you measure design effectiveness with something like the triple bottomline instead of exclusively the economic bottomline?
Where do I turn my own work onto these types of things? how to turn my own designing and thinking and practice towards these basic needs? Housing, mobility, clothing, food, water, these are all things that also can play into different Project Drawdown "solutions."
Is this a useful way to interact directly with the city of Baltimore? is this how to think of new content for coursework? Is this a good way to frame project briefs? Is this a good way to identify problems.
Side note: Design as problem finder, not problem solver — more on that sometime?
Do I need to differentiate between "Graphic Design" and "Design?" ??? Do I care for my own practice? When I say design, I am meaning "Signs on Substrates" or "Signs Signaling" — Signs on Substrates Signaling Sustainability!? Every gesture is a communicative tool, so its all graphic design, even if its also a sculpture or poster or cup or lamp or farm field!? So, design to improve water access, this is a graphic design project, even if its not a PSA pamphlet. How do I interact with those kinds of projects? how does graphic design? how is that brought into the design classroom? Why is this so hard for me to wrap my head around and explain? Am I trying to hard to have this make sense, be explainable, what can I just accept and move on with?
So, Sustainable design is design that pays more attention to housing, to mobility, to clothes, to food, to energy, to water, to social reform, to music, to trash collection, to waste… It pays closer attention to those things, so that more actual problems can be identified. It doesn't need to solve all of them (is that an out of date modernist idea???) but show the pain points more clearly, show the opportunities more clearly, provide the lens someone else can see a solution through? see THEIR PERSONAL solution through?
Whew, by paying more attention to these things, hopefully one also notices more alternative experiences? like how do we pay attention to these things around the city and let it show us not only design opportunities, but allow us to see the ways in which other people experience and interact with food and water and shelter.
We can also talk about these things not as human centric only: design for better housing could also include peregrine falcons and white tail rabbits and cicadas and little brown bats — how are all these other species ALSO housed better? How can design be little brown bat centered, not just human centered? Or, even Dinoflagellate centered, like designing the harbor to be a better home to brackish water loving eukaryotes AND people!?
Starting to think like that begins to surface more opportunities for visualizing the nodes of connection; how "EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED."
If everything is connected, then designing for better housing for people means we also need to design better housing for bay oysters. My house is connected to the land around it which is part of the greater watershed which is part of the bay which is part of the Atlantic which is part of Spaceship Earth… How does protecting a piedmont forest protect the bay and protect my home?
What housing constitutes good housing? what is better housing? Whose criteria, what criteria do we use? Are there multiple? once there is good housing, then there is obviously bad housing. What to do with the "bad" — destroy it? rehabilitate it? abandon it? recycle it? repurpose it?
Good: Simple row houses? my own old stone house? Bad: McMansion; some big Roland Park houses?
When is a house too big? When does a house use too much energy? how does class and race and place and culture play into that decision? Why should we have so much private space? Where does the commons and collective ownership come in? how about communes? other kinds of living communities? how are they about "better" housing or "better" water utilization?
When these things are the goal of a graphic designer, of a graphic design process, what changes? how does designing for better mobility lead to new or different design techniques or visuals? Are there old tropes we've used that say "mobility" that are no longer useful if we need a sea change? All new visual vocabularies? by learning a new we train our brains to a different understanding. What visual synergies exist to pair the ancient with the novel? There are plenty of solutions from our past, this isn't just a young person's game; this isn't just the purview of tech start ups.
Why am I so cynical and bitter and angry.
Shit, this was from TED2010!? So bill gates says that energy and climate are the most important to the kinds of people that the Gates Foundation helps…
As we make energy cheaper we have to contend with the constraints of releasing too much CO2.
Innovating to Zero. it is important. We have to stop emitting CO2.
We're not going to do anything about the people, we want to help people, not purposefully get rid of anyone. Services, well, we need to increase health, education, utilities, etc. to all people. We can do something about E and C. P and S will increase for now, P might start to go down in the next decades, if other things can be done positively!?
unbelievable scale and unbelievable reliability
Investigate more: Bill Gross > eSolar, Vinod Kholsa, Nathan Myhrvold
So Bill Gates' wish for "one important thing by 2050" was that "something that gives us energy for half the cost AND no co2 gets invented" – this is the highest impact…
Innovate to zero. Useful goal, useful objective way to measure "success"
20 years to invent, 20 years to deploy... we've spent 10 years of that invention budget, are we doing okay?
If you make it make economic sense, then it doesn't matter if it makes climate sense. Is that a rational approach to take? why talk about the climate at all then?
≠≠≠
What did I learn from that accidentally 10 year old video? what questions for design does it bring up? Does it again provide objective criteria for helping define or evaluate "good" designing?
I mean, for sure, graphic designing that helps with Gates' checklists is "better" designing then. AND oh man, that drive energy per service down, the drive CO2 per unit of energy down, variables in the equation of "net zero" are good design metrics. What materials to spec? what processes to spec? how to power my laptop? whether or not to even use a laptop? These all become important things.
How might new projects fit into this smartly? Are my "spontaneous lamps" good project exemplars for this? how about the precious plastics tooling? what about just our silly yard and house conversions? How can things that I do as gestures showcase these other kinds of innovative thinking and working and the other future possibles that are available? That's what Bill needs right? If we want to innovate to zero we also have to VISUALIZE the alternative possibles for people to excite them about innovating more and faster and better!?
Eco-friendly. This is a kind of shorthand for "Environmental Sustainability." I think it has some semantic issues; it can easily be used incorrectly; but, it is understandable to people in a way that other things – sustainability, restorative, etc. – aren't.
Define: Eco-friendly
So, if something is not environmentally harmful, does it bring along a different set of aesthetic judgements since a different set of manufacturing and material judgements have been used? If the normal way of making and transporting and selling things IS environmentally harmful, what's an environmentally un harmful capitalist machine for making, transporting and selling? Do the visual aesthetics that have helped create our current situation need to be abandoned or replaced along with all the other systems?
Cradle to Cradle outlines a situation where most of the systems in terms of commerce and society stay the same, but the tools, materials, systems, processes for manufacturing are totally transformed. In that system, well, some aesthetics would by their very nature change, some materials wouldn't exist, some structural, built forms would have to be abandoned due to energy waste, material squandering, etc. but most of the wrapping, most of the signs on substrates, they could probably stay the same. There's a slightly different message to communicate, but in the end, the goal is the same, make more, sell more, get happy and fitter and more successful through consumption, but let's just make sure its the right consumption. [Need to cite some things for this, probably would need to elaborate on my point, not just flippant].
But is that possible? is that desirable? Eco-friendly it may be in theory... How does that change if more commons based practices are utilized?
A Tesla is perhaps a good example. Teslas are meant to look like cool contemporary cars. They are designed to take advantage of and add too contemporary luxury car culture. This is a status symbol that you own. This is about individual ownership. This is about speed. While a Tesla might be eco-friendly compared to an equivalent luxury gasoline sedan, the goal of being faster, the goal of being shinier, the goal of being nicer, the goal of replacing cars 1 to 1 with this other "better" car are not. These ideas are still about more, these ideas are still about the past and present ideas of what a car is for, what constitutes coolness in cars. That in and of itself is not eco-friendly. Real eco-friendliness is no cars right? or foraged bamboo pedal and wind powered wheeled vehicles… Where do Tesla and Polestar fit into that ideal? How can you design a system that after existing for a little while designs itself out of existence? a car that through being sold replaces OTHER people's cars! This is sort of what services/ownership models like Lynk+Co do – you individually buy the car, BUT! you can lend it to other people in your network easily.
Okay, but that's not about aesthetics right – What kind of cars look eco-friendly? the solar powered ones? the EV1? the little things like Smart Cars? For buildings and cars where there are objective forms for measuring more or less energy wastage aesthetic choices can be tied to other important choices… or rather are the outcome of other choices. How does this work in choosing a typeface or image or page size or paper stock? How do all of those choices lead to new or different or alternative visuals.
What does eco-friendly look like in the first place? does everyone picture green leaves and brown paper and hand written lettering? do people picture sleek modernist forms indicative of big tech like Apple and Stripe who promote their "eco-friendly" choices heavily? IS eco-friendly looking synonymous with crunchy, granola-y, burlap of old?
Why do I always get hung up on this idea. Why can't I let this go? Why must I have an answer for this quandary?
Okay, so how does this help one be a better climate designer? a better sustainabilitist? a better designer period?
MISSED THIS ONE!
So why do I get hung up on the aesthetics question, on the what do things look like hill? it is because of IDEOLOGY and how art, how visual culture communicates IDEOLOGY through its visuals.
What something looks like tells you something about the ideology(ies) it represents or it desires to come from. Modernism as a style HAD an ideology at first, the way it looks come from radical ideas about society and art and design's place in society...
the best for the most for the least.
Okay, so eco-friendly looking things should have an agenda. Or rather an eco-friendly agenda should result in a specific kind of style that then visualizes eco-friendliness.
I get hung up on the form part of things. But I forget, form is a subset of content, and that is a subset of context. So, we need to look at contexts, we need to look at interconnections and audiences and messages and whatever else and let that lead us to forms.
This is a good time to just go into the form <> content <> context discussion. That needs a write up too! (Andrew Blauvelt reference; Ellen Lupton? did she ever talk about this at large or just to us in grad school? what else do I say about it? oh, Christopher alexander has a lot about it in notes on the synthesis of form and more.)
Once you have forms that represent ideologies though; you really easily get into territory where the form disconnects from said ideology – or is transfigured to represent a new or different ideology.
I find this complicated in the world at large. For example, small social enterprises that are designed to look the same as a giant corporate bank... what to do about this? where else to look for new forms? how to not appropriate something else incorrectly? can new forms be constantly invented, is that even worthwhile or sustainable? what does eco-friendly look like? even that is a good question. is it the stereotype – crunchy granola brown and green things – or is it that the "looking eco-friendly" is because all the eco-friendliest choices were made for materials, processes, etc. and whatever form that manifests, that is what eco-friendly looks like; and so that might be malleable for different quantities of something; or different kinds of projects result in different "forms" despite them all being eco-friendly?
Does this get harder or easier once you get into "design for the welfare of all life"?
transition to my various versions of my Nebraska talk from March 2021. What other ways did I try to explore and explain this? how can I illuminate all of that previous thinking more effectively?
How does one move towards a more sustainable graphic design practice?
One might ask if spending hundreds of hours trying to relearn a workflow and tooling in GNU/Linux is sustainable (the general open sourcery is SOOOO much work to transition too)? But! I am more than capable of reusing much older computers in this realm, so there is a possibility for not having to get NEW computers anymore?
The GNU ecosystem is fully into reusing old ideas — just reusing ideas period.
The ecosystem for libre tools is more like a natural ecosystem: evolution; variations due to minor differences of philosophy or habit or desire; a plurality of solutions… If the way our tools are built and evolve is more like natural cycles/processes; does that allow those tools to fit into our lives, society, and culture in more "natural" ways? (natural meaning finding harmony with nature; being more "a part" of nature rather than "apart" from nature).
Do the ideals of F/LOSS align with the ideals of sustainability?
Does "all humans and other life should flourish" fit into F/LOSS as an ideal?
Where and how do my interests in Design serving a flourishing/welfare of all life agenda and my interests in F/LOSS overlap; how are they additive; how do they serve each other. Are they negative or at odds with each other?
Free software can allow for more creative waste to become creative food. And, WASTE = FOOD is a sustainable ideal. So, does that make free software more sustainable?
Waste = Food; what other ways can I find that this is true for creative kinds of waste? As I mentioned before I think that in some ways F/LOSS improves upon this equation.
Is this also how vernacular patterns/building come into the picture — are free/libre open models the new vernacular (is that how I make my designing today more like the way say a Cape Cod house comes together?)
Waste = Food is a great idea to apply to more things than just the natural world. Here's a great prompt: the earth's major nutrients are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, & nitrogen ... what are graphic design's major nutrients? (and! how can they be cycled and recycled into new graphic design indefinitely?)
(transition from waste = food to speculative design and challenging the status quo?)
Dunne and Raby propose that design should explore activities and outcomes that question and challenge status quo industrial agendas—however! for the most part the designers doing this are still using status quo tools! Sustainability (at least the flourishing variety I am interested in) is NOT the current status quo; so if I am challenging the assumptions of contemporary design and capitalist consumerism, then I need non-capitalist consumerist tools to do that with—enter F/LOSS.
Sustainable Graphic Design is a mindset, not a checklist of "the right" materials
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Referenced in 020210607235218 Ideas
Sustainable graphic design does not exist. that might mean "there is no such graphic design that can count as sustainable — its all wasteful garbage that does nothing good" — or — sustainable graphic design doesn't exist meaning that it comes together to serve a communication purpose; deliver a semiotic message; and then redistributes back to whatever energy and matter it was before.
The point is not that literally you can't make it (though that is sort of what I was thinking at first), but that a graphic designed thing that is sustainable comes together to communicate the message it needs to communicate; and then can dematerialize back to its initial parts once the communicative need is over. How does "signs on a substrate" translate to "pieces coming together for a determinate amount of time and then returning to their constituent pieces"
Sustainability is about knowing what you want to sustain. Libre tools are about a person's freedom to do what they want. If I don't want to sustain our moderno-techno-capitalism, then I should probably use libre tools while creating alternatives... what do I want to sustain though? It is easy to say what I don't want to sustain; less clear to say what I do want to.
If sustainable designers don't make design; what do we make? who do I need my next clients to be? If I am all in on the sustaino-libre stuff; what are the kinds of things I must investigate? And, how does being a "graphic designer" play into all this when/if/as my projects become more about software development; more about building bicycles; more about actions or interventions; more about proposals and plans?
I know I like to say how the sustainabilitist principles project exemplifies "sustainable design does not exist" since the objects came together to be a sculpture for an exhibition and then went back to being the objects afterward — but how does that work for other kinds of projects? can I work with clients and still pitch that kind of solution? (do I have examples????)
Should sustainable design look intentionally different to tell everyone that its not the same? If the paradigm must shift; then the styles should probably shift as well to be clear that they are in all ways different? By just using different tools and typefaces and image sources do you do this? does it need to be more extreme than that?
What is perennial graphic design that is restorative to culture — that protects and builds cultural health? (the same way that prairie grasses build and protect the soil health of the plains?)
What does "graphic designing" do to heal and restore the world? how can making anew unmake all the old?
What are local and reusable materials for visual design? making my own paper? creating sheets of remade plastic "paper"? digging and making my own clay to make tablets out of? firing pages that way? what do I produce with those things? plates to print from? stamps? seals? do I draw and compose right into clay? what else allows me to put "signs on substrates" in a meaningful way that continues to let me "graphic design" but really does something about material usage; education; communication; etc???
Am I a sustainable designer? or am I a sustainable person that happens to design — everything I design is thus influenced by my sustainabilitism.
What is the goal of "designing." If everything is a design project; is making new forms important; isn't just fixing what needs fixing an example of "good design" — does the solution need to be novel? (If I design and sew a traveling silverware roll using salvaged cloth and found silverware is that any less of a design project than designing a new folding "hobo knife"?) IF the answer is no, it's not different, then wtf, what am I doing, what am I teaching? If the answer is yes, it is different; do I want to be a "designer" then? Why not just a vernacular crafter or builder? Is this counterculture modernism? Whole-earthers did some things like this right? Zomes? Papanek's coffee can radio? A lot of reuse; but with the goal of making things people need in the moment? Still new things; but a repurposed or reconfigured materials based on what is at hand; what is readily available? What is design: making things we want? making things we need? Solving problems? what problems? whose problems? What does it take to let "sustainability" or "restorative design" take a hold in mainstream culture/society? does it need to be more of a religion? more of a political party? Do there need to be more movies or kids shows or whatever that fully embrace doing something about climate change as their theme to affect a change? Regular TV news? obviously the current journalism does little. Why? What else can I speculatively brainstorm? science fiction books are a plenty. Can we make this a WWII like "war effort" to fight the evils of climate change? Reframe everything in the context of us against the greenhouse gasses — C02 increasing is the same as the Nazi's winning Europe? What other ways of framing this are there? I need to try more! That's another potential win for Graphic Design — communicating this in as many ways as is possible.
How does graphic design take carbon back out of the atmosphere? what can communication design (meaning what can signs on substrates) do to get carbon out of the air and into the ground? to keep carbon bottled up? does making bricks of plastic and then shaving them into paper help? does making my own paper from used clothes and scrap paper help? what else can I do??? just picking Risograph isn't enough. Just buying some renewable offsets isn't enough. How does this bake into designing generally? to design pedagogy? to society at large?
Stabilizing the climate isn't about reducing emissions, we have to _zero_ our emissions. Instead of just lowering things, we need to stop completely and then actually remove carbon from the atmosphere. Driving an EV doesn't cut it. replacing a car w/ a used bicycle & your lawn with a permaculture garden is a much better start.
to change a system; intervene in small ways around the edges ... at some point that system will react to those changes and be made to change ??? small is not less important than big in a complex system.
Designing Tomorrow's World Today: What design does this; what did the messaging around Ozone depletion look like? What about Carson's _Silent Spring_ related anti-chemical rhetoric? what about WWII "we need you" type things? Oh man, that's a great resource — war time propaganda posters. Does that stuff work now? what is cultural convincing design now? what is design that causes people to follow and just do?
Survival of the most generous interconnected groups.
life-affirming design thing.
Every graphic design problem's answer is not a book; or a poster; or an identity... it is not necessarily a visual design problem; superficial 2D surface decoration isn't the answer to every problem — though the thinking of a designer might reveal an interesting solution still... Can it always be framed as signs on substrates (signs on surfaces?) even if not a visual "answer"?
if sustainability is a cyclical, restorative, resilient, flourishing, non-anthropocentric, maintenance-based, stewardship, co-existing thing...... what? you cannot expect everyone to understand what you mean by sustainability — so do we need other words; or do we just need to say that we mean all those other things when we say sustainability. it is a shorthand sign for all those other words...
Design is about connections. Design is about bringing people and ideas and problems and solutions together.
Design only works when it is trying to achieve a success for the planet; for the welfare of all life.
We do not have unlimited energy. We do not have unlimited resources. How does this change our relationship with designing? With capitalism? with our economic ideals?
What do I want to sustain? What does the welfare of all life really look like? really entail? How do you actually design for this? What kind of design challenges structural inequalities and balances equity, ecology, and economy? Design that collaborates so as to create lasting, positive change in one's community?
Writing for 30 minutes a day is turning out to be complicated. I am not good at reserving time for anything I just tack it all on at the end. This is not sustainable.
If design only works if it is trying to achieve a success for the planet, then in general design is always failing.The laptop I write this on is a disaster; my home I write from a scar on the land. What destruction has my life and my constant need for energy and resources caused? how do we make amends? how does design make amends? what is the goal? designing away design?
I'm not making it today. My mind is empty.
Journal or essay?
what is the point of this exercise? to generate content? to clarify ideas? to what end? for whom? Is this useful for me or for others? who is my audience? designers? or general people? Practitioners or academics?
I watched part of _Jurassic Park_, this idea that we're meddling with things we still can't grasp or understand; that our earth's systems are beyond our control and we need to stop trying so hard to be the Earth's rulers... that all resonates.
Maybe I need some better plans or constraints for this? like not just picking a prompt, but trying to find something that needs more explaining? trying to find something I feel that I don't quite understand or can't quite explain and that could be better illuminated?
I need to do some stretching. Yoga everyday, writing everyday, where is the time for building legos with one's kid! How to give up other things for the common good? not just materials, resources, but wasted efforts, wasted time. How to read again? when did I last finish a book? so sad. That's not sustainable either!
how do I make this more usable? more searchable? more reusable? more build-upon-able? do some of these things end up as their own documents? their won essays? is it worthwhile to keep absolutely every thing in one foolishly gigantic text file?
do I need new clients? new ideas? new directives?
Are there exemplary designers doing this in a way that I find aspirational? I mean there are the occasional projects that come along that I say "wow" too; but actual design practices? Perhaps Sanctuary Computers?
Also, what is this: https://theopenbody.com/
How can I make this more usable, refernecable, make the ideas build upon each other more AND end up more shareable out in the world at large as I work on it? how can I then easily post things on medium and such too!?
Okay, what if I write these in a tiddly wiki? I can then make each day's effort a tiddler; ideas can be cross referenced; shared definitions can easily be added/created/evolved. I can then also figure out how to make it a live site! and maybe even host it on my own little pi server on the local network, and then figure out port forwarding to get it live from the house!? That could become my own litle solar powered web server.
So, that sounds like a good thing to try the next several posts – make this a tiddly wiki. I'll add all that here to this repo i guess? then its easily shareable across my machines until I figure out how to get a little raspberry pi server going.
The rest of this 1/2 hour will be spent setting that up I guess!
Okay cool. TiddlyWiki appears to be working. And I have it installed on my Linux machine and the mac machine via node.js instructions. Coolio. We'll see how this goes as a way to write and interconnect more!
This is really for 020210612!
I've got a tiddly wiki setup, and man, doing it with Node is so much easier to version control, etc. All the bits and pieces end up their own bits and pieces, and then get compiled into the site at the end I think? anyway, its a little easier to conceptually manage than just an HTML file floating around with literally everything inside it...
Onto other things. Today is related to Signs Signaling Sustainability
I was thinking about this as I worked outside today – is my yard a sign signaling sustainability? do all these wildflowers and carefully pruned fruit trees and other random assortment of perennial and annual plants "signal" something clearly or usefully? Do they say, hey, here is an alternative way to live? here is an alternative way to garden? here is an alternative way to participate with the environment? is this even useful? The neighbors seem to like the yard's evolution? but, is that good enough? does it inspire anyone else to do something? what else can I do? how can we retain more water safely? how can we become a habitat for more creatures?
What do we want? what do we need? What can I do to have a plan? make a plan? do more? do less?
The goal for our house? carbon neutral by 2025, carbon negative by 2030? how does one get there? and just the house? what about our f-ing lives? What can graphic design do to help with this? why am I caught up with this label? why stuck feeling like a graphic designer? why not artist? why not maker"? why not just person?
I am a Person Doing Person Things. How do I just go about being okay with that?
Why do I waste time on things that don't matter. Like trying to make custom styles for things like slack and my tiddlywiki? is it worth it really!? come on.
How can I make my OOKB palette more accessible? higher contrast? how to make it more usable, more reusable, through the constraints of accessibility. Is this a learning opportunity for me? is this a "sign signaling sustainability" of some sort or another?
this project isn't going very well. Why am I so negative? do I have adhd? am i depressed? how does one find this out? I guess you just ask doctors? is procrastinating doing that a sign that one has those things? why procrasticnate how does my mind make thiese connections? why do I ogo over and over again on the same things, while also going out and out again on wild goose chases???
Can I please get to anything I actually hope to? The plastic stuff!? please! crhis how do we proceed?!?!
This wiki can quickly turn into something useful from a class/sustainabilitist perspective.
Stuff that would be cool to do and get done: * reach out to various people in Baltimore I could foreseeably help?
Why think that far into the future? What is useful? if we look 10000 years into the past do we see anything resembling that far off thinking from before? Do indigenous communities think this way? there is the 7 generations thing, that's not 10000 years, but its at least a 150 years into the future!?
10,000 years ago (8,000 BC): The Quaternary extinction event, which has been ongoing since the mid-Pleistocene, concludes. Many of the ice age megafauna go extinct, including the megatherium, woolly rhinoceros, Irish elk, cave bear, cave lion, and the last of the sabre-toothed cats. The mammoth goes extinct in Eurasia and North America, but is preserved in small island populations until ~1650 BC.
10,000–9,000 years ago (8000 BC to 7000 BC): In northern Mesopotamia, now northern Iraq, cultivation of barley and wheat begins. At first they are used for beer, gruel, and soup, eventually for bread.[48] In early agriculture at this time, the planting stick is used, but it is replaced by a primitive plow in subsequent centuries.[49] Around this time, a round stone tower, now preserved to about 8.5 metres (28 ft) high and 8.5 metres (28 ft) in diameter is built in Jericho.[50]
10,000–5,000 years ago (8,000–3,000 BC) Identical ancestors point: sometime in this period lived the latest subgroup of human population consisting of those that were all common ancestors of all present day humans, the rest having no present day descendants.[51]
(from wikipedia)
The interesting part of thinking 10000 years in the future – or the past – is that it is a moving target. As we move forward in time, 10000 +/- is also fluid.
But if we think about 10000 old people and societies; well; the difference between us and 10000 years ago us is pretty staggering. So, trying to presume what 10000 year future us might be like, well, f, that is hard. So what is the point of a group like the Long Now Foundation? Why try to think this far in the future? Can we out think natural cycles that we don't seem to be able to understand or control? can we look back 10k then SEE some patterns, and try to use that to predict? Do we say, what COULD things be like 10k in the future and then invent the things we WANT for that future instead? (Future Possibles)
Brian Eno likes to say, when asked about Long Now, well, have you ever thought 10k years into the future before!? THAT's why we're doing this. It isn't necessarily about solving anything, but about forcing people out of their thinking patterns, get us out of short term immediate thoughts, actions, objects, into mcuh much larger, longer ones. Even a sky scraper for instance, that wasn't actually invisioned to last even hundreds of years? did any architect when designing a fanciful apartment megaplex think, what might happen with this structure 50 years from now? 100? 500? 5000? Does anyone think this way about anything they create?
If there is a project with Sue Spaid and Patricia Johanson this type of thinking will have to be an important part of the project: how does time affect design? Signage for an outdoor environmental park? one way would be "indestructible" objects, things meant to last forever! but! as we can surely see from our own histories, unless something is hidden away, it doesn't really last forever. Some rock with elemental clay pigments on it in a cave sheltered away can last tens of thousands of years, there is some graphic deisgn with longevity, but some signage outside in the elements? that needs a different thought process. How can they grow? evolve? adapt? be reborn as nature ravages them? Instead of man vs. nature and a nature proof solution, was is a with nature solution? are there kinds of plants that can be grown to BE the paths? can we train some trees or shrubs to outline where to walk, what direction the next things are in? to grow into benches for visitors?
So, what about my own house? my own work? something useful in thinking 10k in the future is – if there should be no trace of me, then F, how do I make sure there is no trace of me? how to I stop using 10k+ life materials – like terrible plastics – and embrace more natural and long term but correctly degradable materials? I should probably stop resin-ing and spray foaming everything right? My tree posts!? do they have a lifespan that matches the trees? fruit trees don't usually live a lot longer than a couple decades, the posts should last about that long, and replacing them with something metal or whatever instead would be easy enough – or even just starting to replace them yearly with new foraged bamboo?
in How Buildings Learn, Stewart Brand does talk about how all buildings around the world used to use about 250 materials or something, and now (or at least in the 90s when he wrote is) there were like 10000 different materials... that's probably useful to mention or dig into more somewhere? right? like do all creations have this issue now? so many new and different and technical materials, things with little to no connection to natural cycles or common maintenance or easy replace-ability? What ramifications does this have for graphic design? home life? our future selves? our 100th generation in the future ancestors?
I've got nothing today...
I am trying to figure out how to show some links to and from things on these tiddlers, but when empty nothing shows...
I am also trying to figure out how to build a cool dynamic list of all the prompts I've used, so far that is a bust too.
I also wish to point out that "signs signaling sustainability" could be a direction to take some of this web stuff too? does that become its own prompt? how to explain everything as a potential SSS!?
How do I preset journals to have the requisite fields for my rambling writings?? is there a way to standardize the answers?
this wasn't really a writing day as much as a figure out some cool tiddlywiki things – is that getting in the way now of actually trying to write anything! ugh. Always the procrastinator
Is there an actual good reason to put solar panels all over one's house and car and driveway and side yard and whatever else? Besides just jumping on a renewables bandwagon, besides just getting in on the love for solar, what are the other design opportunities, the other communicative possibilities? Does a big array on one's house show other's a way forward? does it do anything at all? can we really make this work with just solar panels? we use so much f-ing power!
What kind of useful thinking can I bring to this? Do we actually know the ramifications of the objects 25+ years from now? what about all the material resources needed to make them and their intermittent nature?
What kinds of physical, lo-fidelity energy storage can I put on my house? how many "watts" of power can I get out of a few gravity batteries from my roof line to the ground? where else can we try that? Would union brewing be interested in that?!?
These are all additional Signs Signaling Sustainability opportunities: show people interesting new ways forward! Future Possible generating.
Why go solar? Good Question! are these renewables really important? are we creating a different kind of energy problem? how might design help in this? what needs communicating? what needs changing? how can life adapt to maximum power generated only at certain times or certain kinds of days? where are there other opportunities for storage and generation?
If I go solar, how do I manage to reduce power consumption? what do I get rid of? how can more things be actually "off" meaning not drawing anything at all? is ever constant high speed internet a necessity if we want to solve climate change? are multiple computers and tablets and printers and tvs and stereos and all kinds of lights and gadgetry needed? do they need to be always instantly on and available? what if the house was rewired to limit where things could be plugged in? how many things could be plugged in – do you want a light? or a phone charger? do you want to listen to the stereo or wash the clothes?
When do things all go to DC power? why do all my lights need to be ac but really run on DC? if more of the house was wired to be on tiny LED and electronics DC power, does that make having alternative power generation, storage, and experimentation all more possible?
Is that a good sculpture idea for MICA: some sort of gravity battery to put on each of the buildings? hang off the edge of fox underneath that giant globe – or off the backside where the freeway can see them where there is an extra floor of drop!? from the clock tower at station! No we're talking.
ArtWork Opportunity: Gravity Battery > gravity battery for MICA station tower? or off the backside of Fox or Brown???
There is a former RCA professor, who now is in Portugal I think that has some sort of gravity battery project. Reach out to him!? > it is James Auger >
What other ways of capturing wind power are there? And how can say a hot roof be captured not just as a place to lay solar panels on, but also to create convective updrafts to turn something!? In theory isn't any hot day beating on my roof – even with panels – just creating a natural hot spot that will then drive air currents upward? is there some sort of ridge roof turbine opportunity!?
Compare Sustainable GD with non-sustainable GD… do we first need to define Sustainable? Do we need to define Graphic Design? Is Status Quo synonymous with non-sustainable? I mean, it is right now — but so the goal would eventually be Just Design and Bad Design.
What would be comparing? clients? outcomes? materials? processes? tools? energy sources? all of the above?
Instead of adjectiving design with “sustainable”, we need sustainable design to just become design and design of today to become bad design.
How does that conversation start? how does coursework evolve to reflect this? what to do with all those old text books?
Places that explore this idea:
I tried adding: https://github.com/snowgoon88/TW5-extendedit
still not quite figuring out adding these things via the local node.js version...
okay! edit-comptext is now working, I just didn't have the folder structure setup correctly!?
Ideology and design. Political action and design.
I am sitting here wishing that I could use more and other and different tools. Why only for my frivolous flights of fancy do my "other" tools work? I can use TiddlyWiki and GNU/Linux and Inkscape for my own pursuits, but I never end up using them for client projects – why!?
And, why F/LOSS To begin with? Why should I care if something is Libre or not!? is "free" vs. proprietary, open versus closed? How does that fit into sustainability if at all?
Sidenote: these aren't really essays, sorry to say, but they are random thoughts, that sometimes get explained or further opened up!? Now, how to use them? and why make this open? License?
If Everything Is Connected, F/LOSS and Sustainability have to be tied through some set of steps. Some Six Degrees of Separation sort of thing.
I was led to open source BY sustainability. I was led to free as in freedom because of climate change concerns. In the thinking I have found useful for my Sustainabilitist Principles, connection to open work, vernacular systems, learning from the past and what is around you, reuse, replicating, etc. have all been there.
I initially went to find open source fonts. I read Ellen Lupton's Free Font Manifesto probably when I was starting grad school? I was also thinking that if true sustainability had to account for all sorts of social responsibiity and work around the globe, we needed more adaptable systems – part of this was fonts in more languages, and one of the few fonts I found was open source!? As well as the idea that we might have access to more things than others, so can we make more tools, solutions, and culture shareable and accessible and adaptable. Anyway, this led me to open fonts. Which was funny, as I had gone all in on Drupal already, and was singing the praises of open source from the perspective of web code, tools, tech...
Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn felt like it was really about open source technology. These vernacular buildings Brand was analyzing, these were free as in freedom structures. The process for integrating new building solutions over time matches Eric Raymond's analysis of Linux development – a group of people working together to find and solve bugs; when one person solves the problem, everyone gets the solution!
Where does this start to live in visual design? in sustainability at large? in climate design? in sustainable graphic design? in signs signaling sustainability?
So, Free/Libre Open Source is necessary for Sustainability. Natural systems aren't proprietary right? countless animals have covergently evolved similar traits, tenrecs and lemurs in madagascar for example filling niches that all kinds of other mammals evolved to fill elsewhere... The difference I guess is that they don't intentioanlly share that information; they just over time adopt the same "solutions" because any creature can get htere, and once there are penalized by the creatures that already got there???
Natural systems vs. capitalist ones? vs. human ones? how do we learn from natural systems, but then speed up the sharing or co-evolving? Where does adaptability and resilience come in? what things HAVEN'T been resilient? what have? Jellyfish as a species have; ferns as a species have; arachnids as a species have? what do we learn from them? how does one survive an exitinction event? how does one quickly evolve usefully? how does one re-shape themselves to their environment? how might we instead reshape our world for ourselves? or for the welfare of all life?
Nice! finally I figured out this button thing... now to get the button to show up in the right place!?!?!?!?!?! a useful place!?!?!?!?!?!?
Do you just feel stuck? do you feel like you are just moving forward in time but nothing you do really matters or is that much in your control? I mean, that sounds sort of depressing. I guess its not like I'm not in control; its more like I continue to end up in the future without having made much of the present or my past? There were plans, grand ideas, and then, poof, time is gone and none of those things happened. It probably isn't too late, but other things just happened instead and now it seems hard or impossible to do the others... this is so general and non specific.
Do affirmations or mantras actually help? how many times do I chant "I want to sustain the welfare of all life" before it becomes true? before I do something useful about it?
Be Do Have.
What am I stuck on?
What do you want to sustain? not what I have going on right now. I am miserable. The state of things seems pretty bad. Our country divided. Resources depleted. I'm in some sort of rut. Is being transparent about that helpful?
What don't you want to sustain?; What do you want to abandon?. Is that a useful question? What to stop doing? What should we stop designing? instead of what can I design for you client person with metrics?
In learning about our world, it seems odd that we a) are so concerned with "preservation" of nature, of buildings, of whatever. Entropy is a fundamental law of the universe; everything tends towards chaos; entropy moves towards a maximum. The idea of "preservation" – at least with how its done right now, is sort of anti entropy? what instead is a more entropy embracing ideal? entropy embracing processes? how do you design and build WITH entropy instead of against it? Okay, so what do I want to sustain? well, dynamism that works with entropy. What do I want to sustain? how about biodiveristy. Now, after millions of years, earth always bounces back from whatever extinction events we've had in the past. So, I mean, the earth will probably be fine. But! presuming we humans want to hang in a place that is more or less like the one we've been evolving in, well, what can we do instead? do I care about sustaining the polar bears? do I care about sustaining maximum variety of tenrecs in madagascar? or do I just care about sustaining human habitable earth?
E. O. Wilson talks about "Half Earth"; how we have to keep half the earth free from humans and let the animals alone... But this doesn't seem like an option. Or even how the history of the earth has worked – humans have always BEEN A PART OF NATURE. WE ARE NATURE. WE AREN'T SEPARATE; THAT'S WHERE ALL THE PROBLEMS COME FROM; THINKING THAT WE ARE SEPARATE!?
So we can control our environment a bit? so what! so can beavers. ants farm fungus. certain creatures when they end up in new places kill the old creatures. This is a part of nature. Terror birds in south america; they got eaten by giant cats coming down from Central and North america!? I don't know where that train of thought is going.
The big fish eat the little ones.
Where does this all fit together? The idea of leaving the world, half the world anyway, alone, well it presumes that we have half the world to turn back over. do we? who do we have to move to make this happen? More importantly, can we not just make our habitats better suited for other life to live as well? Maybe that's the real issue – not that we need more "nature" but that humans need to allow for more other lives in our cities, houses, etc.
What does design for all life mean when you are urban planning? what does the welfare of all life mean when you are building a house? what does the the flourishing of all life look like when you are deciding how to generate power? how do we even define human existence in the future if we are accounting for these other things. If we get back to acknowledging our part in the web of life; our part as FELLOW travelers on spaceship earth > here we go, the trees and corals and scorpions and komodo dragons and toucans and kangaroo rats are all our fellow shipmates; they are the crew WITH us... no one should be allowed to go down with this ship; there are no life rafts; stop listneing to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk; who cares about Mars, who even cares about going to the moon some more; do something positive about spaceship earth! WE ARE ALL ALREADY ON A DAMN SPACESHIP; WAY BIGGER AND COOLER AND MORE COMPLEX THAN ANY OF US WILL EVER BUILD.
So Many Questions; so few solutions. Well, do we need solutions from me? just problem finding? problem space pointing out to be solved by interested parties to their contextual aims!?
Continue from 020210620224253 Ideas
I want to sustain reducing energy consumption. I want to sustain dynamic, resilient habitats. I want to sustain that the Chesapeake bay is habitable by all kinds of creature, that people can utilize it recreationally?
I want to sustain reading books; drinking pleasantly perfectly plain pilsners; enjoying coffee; different cultures; all purpose bicycles.
I want to get rid of individually owned automobiles, gasoline, enriched foods, soy everything.
I want to sustain helping people; improving life expectancy everywhere; innovating energy creation and storage; what happens in a meadow as dusk; walks in the woods; sunsets in state parks.
Who owns this land if we don't? can I make my tiny piece of private land a commons again? what happened to the commons? why is individual ownership of everything seen as superior? who does that benefit? I don't feel like it benefits me – and yet – I'm terrible at sharing and collaborating and collectively owning things...
I want to sustain DOING SOMETHING about what I think needs doing. So, writing things down, trying to be helpful, making some more tutorials and explainer videos? How does this play out longer term?
Okay, well, is this working so far? I wrote a few things... but then I've gotten overly concerned with this tiddly wiki stuff. How can I use this platform for WRITING better moving forward? How can I start something, then flesh out the components? Do I try to Create An Outline as a prompt? Then each day or week try to elaborate on those things; then elaborate on those things; etc? that seems like a good plan. So, then what would be the "outline"? Do some days I just go through the missing tiddlers list and try to fill things out? When do I go back and try to connect more things together? when do I add my own ideas and questions? how do I pull out the questions I keep asking myself!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is morning. I am waiting.
Waiting on a project; waiting for myself to get motivated.
I can always seem to find a way to stay focused, to figure out what to do next. Everything is a reaction. Is that natural. Do trees plan; is everything intentional; are they reacting to their environment continuously?
Is there a better job I could be doing? is RUNNING a graphic design business not the right thing, is just doing other peoples tasks/projects what I should be doing instead?
These construction guys look like they're having a good time. They get to be outside, build real stuff. Help people a little some of the time; not with made up things – like a website for invented objects just to be sold – but people who's wall is caving in or house is leaking. That's real right?
What is this obsession with real? is this really a question of "value" like what do I find valuable? Perhaps I need to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance again?
I am eating cherry pie. It is good. I am supposed to be thinking of clever things to say about the jones falls. Why is that so hard?
Visits with friends. Visits with family. These things are so strange, so foreign seeming.
I keep missing a lot. Appointments, scheduled meetings, deadlines. I was pretty bad at this stuff before; but the way things still are turning out? its just enhanced all my problems with focus and time management and paying attention to what day or time it is.
What else can I do or write about? I am at a loss today. I will go through some missing things and fill in and connect.
really? nothing?
Well... as soon as I sat down to write... kids wokeup. f.
Okay. what prompt shall we use today? is my design good design?
How do you define good design? Ethically good? formally good? socially good? environmentally good? economically good? all of the above? This question led Dieter Rams to his Ten Principles for Good Design — what should it lead a contemporary Sustainabilitist to???
Good design = formal goodness.
This is frequently the main "good" I think people are talking about right? That something LOOKS good? How does "looking good" evolve when you are using the triple bottom line for your judgements? (see: 020210601223047 Ideas)
Good Formalism = Modernist Formalism
And this is the problem right? the way we teach and understand most design disciplines, they are stuck in the mindset that what makes "good" design are the things that make "modernist design" — following the instructions for modernism = making good design. That is the recipe. NOT following the instructions for modernist design just gets you to bad design.
Maybe this is fine, sometimes. But this misses a lot of alternative content and contexts. Right? Like, is modernism as a style always correct? is modernism as an ideology always positive?
This overlaps with the Form <> Content <> Context things I frequently think about.
Good formalism(s): what makes a good formal answer?
What does sustainable Graphic Design look like?
Why do I keep coming back to this question?
I believe that aesthetics matter.
I believe that aesthetics are a visualization of an ideology
Having a specific ideology should bring with it specific aesthetic choices.
Modernism is my favorite example of this... I should probably do my own revisionist history lesson on why modernist things are the way they are? And how that relates to moderno-techno-consumer-capitalism?
Okay, so you have ways of thinking.
I am failing at my endeavor.
Free Culture > In The Beginning Culture was Free! (from Lecture Ideas for Utah Workshop intro)
If culture was free, what happened? when did people learn that by controlling culture and cultural production they gained power? Is this something that was learned early on? Why do we continue to let this happen? If culture WAS free, why can't we just go back to that?
Month two of the idea. The goal for this month is to find a few more coherent Prompts that maybe all come from my previous writings and ideas so I can expand on something that's already started? clarify something I've already been thinking about? how to generate a lot of coherent content that can then start to be put into some kinds of forms!?
So, I made it a month, sort of. This is proving to be harder than I thought. The format is getting in the way of just writing. My inability to focus and being pulled in too many directions by life, kids, house stuff, work stuff, school stuff, climate stuff, whatever, means I don't dedicate the time each day this plan requires.
What can I do less of? what can I stop? what am I okay missing out on? Maybe those are new questions to ask?
I am reading this book, The Joy of Missing Out (JOMO), and that's a key element: What are you willing to miss out on? How can I figure this out with my wife and family so that we as a small group can start being more sustainable? how does that trickle then out to others? the rest of our families? our friends? our community?
What do I have to miss out on to do the things I wish? What do I wish to do? I have to answer that in the first place? this is like the What do you want to sustain? question. You have to define that; state that; to then actually define what is next!?
John Ehrenfeld states in the book Flourishing “The key to doing something about sustainability is that you first have to say what you want to sustain.” Ehrenfeld wants to sustain that “all humans and other life should flourish” (pg 23). Using Ehrenfeld’s thinking, Sustainable Graphic Design is design made for clients that believe all life should flourish, design made to promote messages about sustainability-as-flourishing, and design made with materials and processes that promote and sustain the state of flourishing too.
Graphic designers are form makers. Sustainable graphic designers must make formal decisions. How does the sustainable designer concern themselves with the forms and aesthetics of a solution? Are there visual choices that are more sustainable? What form says “I believe that humans and all life should flourish?” Are aesthetics as they relate to sustainability even important?
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How does this question influence one's designing? are there materials that then one can't use? how about power sources?
Graphic designers are form makers. Sustainable graphic designers must make formal decisions. How does the sustainable designer concern themselves with the forms and aesthetics of a solution? Are there visual choices that are more sustainable? What form says “I believe that humans and all life should flourish?” Are aesthetics as they relate to sustainability even important?
I relate aesthetics with form.
I relate form with the external surfaces of an object — its shape, size, scale, color, edges, material appearance, etc. But do I have an incomplete idea of form? This is what leads to the "Are there visual choices that are more sustainable?" question. What are the exterior signaling opportunities?
Aesthetics and beauty? beauty and form?
Related to Form <> Content <> Context
Some thoughts on maintenance.
I sat down at the end of the day and decided to fix some old shoes. The shoes themselves are not particularly nice nor are they particularly well made. As is true of most shoes these days, everything is just glued together... the places of most wear have had their glue bonds break and all the seams and such a pulling apart... So, I figured I would just glue everything back together. Now, I have a couple different kinds of glue to try – but I thought one way to make the "maintenance" meaningful was to use Sugru – its a silicone rubber "glue" that starts out as little chunks of moldeable putty. It comes in various colors, and so "fixing" with it decorates what you are fixing in an intentional way.
Do ideas/techniques like Kintsugi ... Are things like that kinds of Signs Signaling Sustainability? When objects age; receive maintenance; and then wear that on their sleeve as a badge of honor, does that help signal a different way forward? noble? am I ego trapping this?
What should a repair look like – should they be invisible? should it be as little repair as possible? can you overrepair something?
The point of this was, hey, what is an interesting way that I can make these shoes last a little bit longer? what else can I do to get a bit more wear out of them? AND can we show others that they can fix or maintain their things by HOW it is done – make the repair intentionally signaling.
How is every design a communicative design? how does one "graphic design" when you aren't making a poster or book or sign or website?
Related:
I started re-reading Victor Papanek: The Politics Of Design. Its got some great thoughts and a really useful timeline of work/ideas — how Victor Papanek's work fits in with all this other work happening at the same time. The timeline is called “Papanek's Life and Era.” I wish I could have seen the show this book is the “catalog” for...
In reading this again, sort of skimming through as a form of procrastination today, I am jus again reminded that "designing" isn't necessarily putting a pretty exterior on something; its not about decorating a surface. Design is about finding something you think isn't working, and trying to make it work!? finding someone that has a need and doing something about it – with them, not for them.
I ordered a lot of new seed today — grass seeds, wildflower mixes, some cool shade plants. How is getting the widest possible variety of plants to grow in my yard a design project? what does it signal? Does it fulfill a "design for the welfare of all life" angle!?
How do I build day to day and week to week? Am I worried about that too much right now? If I go back in and add missing Items, turn more things into questions, do a better job of linking and cross linking and getting rid of redundancies and unused tags... how does that help the experience? what happens when you find this online? how can this take over for the sustainabilitist? is the whole thing the replacement, or just a part... what should live as bjornpaedia and what is the sustainabilitist? how do I export this without all the tiddler controls so its just pages/links!?
When do I start streaming/recording doing this stuff!!??
How does a self-created "encyclopedia" help with sustainability? how can it be added to by others? do I need another tool, another repo, can my own ramblings AND a climate design encyclopedia live together?
What is a Pragmatic Utopian? And why do I like that phrase so much?
Pragmatic: relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters : practical as opposed to idealistic (from MW)
It can also mean that you follow the philosophical concept Pragmatism
Utopian: having impossibly ideal conditions especially of social organization; proposing or advocating impractically ideal social and political schemes (from MW). This version of Utopia comes from Sir Thomas More and his book, Utopia (1516)
How to you combine those two things? and yeah, why am I so into that phrase.
Bjarke Ingels uses it frequently to describe many of the BIG projects.
"There is nothing like a dream to create the future. Utopia to-day, flesh and blood tomorrow." —Victor Hugo
Murray Bookchin had a great speech sort of on this too: Utopia, not futurism: Why doing the impossible is the most rational thing we can do
so if utopian ideas are IDEALISTIC and probably unrealizable (at lesat in the present); and pragmatics is that you are decidedly NOT IDEALISTIC but instead are dealing with immediate practicalities ... how do these fit together? Can you IDEALISTICALLY work within the PRACTICAL? Are there matter of fact, practical, everyday things that are better solved with fantastical idealistic solutions instead of the status quo ones??? or more importantly, can we use the everyday status quo content and tools of the present to instead create idealistic tomorrows!!??
Permaculture farming in the city? is that a gesture that is pragmatically utopian? the plastic recycling machinery where anyone in a neighborhood can recycle their own plastics to make whatever simple things they need? Are even ideas like Kintsugi one version of this? An ideal of maintenance over time; and practical fixing in the present with materials that point towards this other possible tomorrow? Using F/LOSS is an example of this? many of the tools are pragmatic; they do one thing, and focus on doing it simply or quickly over looking good or being easy to figure out (this is a gross generalization that isn't really true, should probably omit) – but they are part of an ecosystem that values FREEDOM over all else; that is utopian for sure – pragmatic utopian.
So, why am I interested in this? becuase! this is what "design" must become – pragmatics, solving real issues of RIGHT NOW with whatever resources are available. But, it can't just solve moderno techno capitalist problems, it can't just get people onto some western neo-colonial track, we need to solve problems AND provide alternative visions of tomorrow – Design that has IDEALS and PRACTICAL application. Practically applied ideals. Ideals applied with practical tools and approaches?
My shoe repairs already wore out. oops. So that wasn't the right way to fix something. Is that why people don't bother fixing things? entropy is always faster, better, stronger?
Biking is the ultimate city transport. What do people have against biking!? Roads aren't just for cars; roads pre-date cars
When will I ever have time to read books again???
When will I ever have time to bake bread again??? what about all our other cooking and fermenting projects?
Why is having this carefully planned yard so important? why bother? does it show anyone another way forward? does it DO anything? Is there a way to make it do more!? Is it about the welfare of ALL the OTHER LIFE around here? not mine or my neighbors, but the cardinal's or the dobson fly's?
Why is this such a struggle?
What are these characters I play? the sustainabilitist? the libre designer? how do I embody them more? how do I act more unselfconciously? how do I act!? I mean act as in actually go out and do something. I have "done something" man, in, years? I talk a lot about doing things, I tell other people to do things? I plan vaguely about doing things... but nothing really gets done!?
I don't even know what day it is anymore.
What is my Traditional Ecological Knowledge – who has some in Balitmore!? what can I learn, listen to, participate in. Not to "improve" myself but to better help others? to better serve others? to better help the local biome?
How does my yard help a hellbender salamander? how does it help a heron? how does it help the peregrine falcons up the road? how does it help the neighborhood bunnies? how does it help the neighbors?
Is this part of the issue – if you ask "how does what I am doing help X" and "X" isn't "make me more money" in some shape or form, then no wonder it seems weird to do ????????
what do I mean here, I mean... well, like whats the cheapest, simplest way to update this house. None of the things I am trying to do really fall into that. Whtas the best return on investment, again probably not the things I am hoping to do... Our yard projects don't fall into this, theyre probably a detriment.
How does one find tax breaks or grants or anything else for the kinds of things we are trying to do!?
Things to try to flesh out!?
So, okay, so I spend a few days coming up with lists like this, but then what? when can I actually get around to WRITING something about any of this stuff? to explaining any of it? what is the goal? and where is the time and energy?
Well, I think I might have lost my earlier post for today, woops.
Gotta get ready to go.
Sto pdoing things you don't want to do – not in like an oh, this is boring I don't want to do it, but I mean projects not really directly in the service of what you want to sustain.
Find more time to work on this, make connections, create some essays for sending out into the world.
We are packed. I am tired. There are never enough hours to do everything. Do I just have too many things I want to do? How can I be better at not "wasting" time – meaning doing things that are of no benefit to myself!?
Tomorrow we drive to Maine. How am I planning to offset this trip? Can I take trips anymore if I want to do something about climte change? How can I better use the time and energy? how can we do something more with our yard and house and lives?
It was way easier to design a poster everyday than to try and write something personally useful everyday.
So, if I start collecting these ideas, what does one do with them? do I need something to do? why can't I just accept getting them down, getting things clarified for myself, letting it direct me better? How can this be all things: journal and personal therapy and knowledge exploration and idea working out space and essay generator!? and thats just what it is. If it is seen or not, if I do smoething or not, the things are here, theyre down, theyre connected!
In 6 hours we go to maine. Not tomorrow.
What is in Maine? time? space? calm? peace? a change? what am I seeking that I hope to find there we're unable to find or do here?
Go to bed.
That needs to be my new mantra above all else. Go to bed. Not more writing, more sustainabilitizing, but more sleeping.
how to get rid of automobiles? What is the point of "personal" mobility? why should something like a car be an individually owned conveyance? why can't we see how useful collectively owning a fleet of robot cars could be? why not no cars? What is the advantage of a car? why cars? who benefits from me owning a car? how might we maximize that benefit to more people? does this network of roads do aything useful? do more roads make us better as a people or worse? what if you couldn't just hopin your car and drive whereeer you wanted? what would you do then?
Why am I so against cars these days? I used to like cars so much.
Driving is horrible.
There are some new stats from Argonne National Lab re: electric cars, battery making resources, carbon footprints, and what electric grid you use to charge your EV with… look this up… car and driver did some analysis on this, reuters, businessweek maybe… link to all that stuff and read up more on it!?
IS this old car I'm driving okay? like its got okay gas mileage, its about to die, maybe, but the engine runs great... should we just get a rav fucking 4 prime? I just want our silly mini mini van as an electric vehicle with tiny gas generator...
Hmmm.
What is the goal? who is the audience? who can I help? why do I want to do these things? Why am I so easily distracted? who am I helping with all this collecting and "writing"? ✍️
How do I make things better for myself? for my family? for my neighborhood? for my city? for my community? for my state? for my watershed? for my country? for my continent? for my tectonic plate? for my planet?
How to design when you aren't designing objects, when you aren't skinning surfaces? but when design is about behavior and action? The John Thackara quote about designers making posters instead of taking actual action comes to mind here...
How is design what you do, how you live, who you help; not objects you make? how to I move my web designing away from web designing and to something else?
its so late. there are no good beds to sleep on here. I've not really done anything for a week. it is oddly refreshing and easy. I wish I was getting some reading done. but other than that. I could really not care less about not doing work...
So then how to transition? how to make money but not be a designer or professor and do the things I want and think are important!?
what is the way to get started on the plastic making project? what is the way to get started on the net zero house graphics project? what is the way to get started on any other home yard/energy efficiency projects? What's the point of all of this anyway?
What can I build with nothing? what can I do with no extra resources? How can it all be powered with renewables? how does any new work offset itself?
I want to be better? but what does this mean? how does one do this?
So, what is a sustainabilitist?. I claim that a sustainabilitist is someone that embraces "Post-environmentalism" … see: The Sustainabilitist Manifesto
And so then this kind of person, this sustainabilitist, then somehow is able to correctly value social, environmental, and economic things in more holistic, interlinked, everything-is-connected, type ways.
A designer as sustainabilitist then designs for ALL these things together... There has to be some awareness for the market... some for society... some for nature.
The whole problem with this is that it envisions the systems as working the way they do now, but made better, made more holistic. It doesn't perhaps envision a different way, a different set of values completely. Instead of high tech and high value and high ROI economically, what if its just getting by – and getting by with a way more socialist or communist view point for what "ownership" means? for what "production" means?
This is perhaps what a sustianabilitist must be too. Part everything. A real mutli-disciplinarian. A renaissance person. How do you understand how to collaborate with people; empathize; communicate; make; weld; calculate; all at high level and together? How do you see all the connections? how do you understand all the complex webs? Can any 1 person do this anymore? does everyone have to not only be a renaissance person, but also be an expert in something and connect with other multi-disciplinarians and experts? everything needs dynamic, resilient, adaptable, on the fly teams made up of whomever is best and available at that time? take the model of Superfriendly and turn it on every situation and problem? Where does large bureaucracy and government fit here?
Is it important to be a designer as sustainabilitsit, or just to be a sustainabilitist. Naturally some design will be required. But if you focuse on the sustainability things and not the design... does that limit one? does that free one? the design stuff is mostly pretty easy actually. If you can see the real problems in the right way, then you can much more correclty find and forumulate the right solutions. if you are just looking at solutions... you jsust keep having what we have. this works for some popel? its probably food for llbean. But its not great for everyone...
I digress.
What the F is up with bike lanes???
I don't know. But I still want to get it figured out.
how to focus? how to set goals? what are my goals? what is the point of all of this? I just wanted to be better? thats not really a goal? better at what? designing? teaching? parenting? all of the above? I maybe can't pick all of those things – which would improve things the most?
Goals.
So, maybe a way to provide some more structure to this site is to try and actually write bits and pieces of an essay? can I pick apart what I did for my talk at University of Nebraska? how about explaining the projects that I explained to them? what else might be good...
What have I already written about I can try to update? What can I recombine or revise? How much have my thougts changed? improved? become more complex?
Back home.
We went to a really cool zoo.
We drove a lot.
I felt like a hypocrite again
Why am I such a judgemental asshole?
Did bezos really need to ride in that space capsule?
What is next?
How to actually get working on the precious plastics stuff?
Call attenborough.
who else would benefit from that idea?
How can doing a "will it shred" plastic day teach people about the different kinds of plastics and the viability of each as a material?
Can every thing I want to do be turned into a public facing teaching opportunity? how can we bypass the traditional formal education systems and get more people more involved with more things and more knowledge?
who needs to learn things? what do we need to learn? are any of "my things" good "for everyone" kinds of knowledge!?
What do I need to learn and from whom?
Where are things going? What is "enough"? What should I write? who should I write for? is it myself? do I need to be clever? why do I feel that need? Can I just be clear?
What is a good short term writing goal? some sort of designed/illsutrated zine ala Tony Venne's MFA book? > The Designer as Sustainabilitist (A Table of Contents)
What else?! what is different or special or strange or new or more? or less?
I am adding things, are they useful? what is the goal of this, how much to collect? how to organize? how to help someone access this all?
I started, with Chris Attenborough, to work on a Precious Plastics oven today! hurray.
What am I doing?
I need to build a bamboo trellis. I need to melt plastic.
What is happening? how have these two months been useful? at all? what have I collected that is of worth?
Month three of the idea. Month I ended up building out a bit more functionality/some new features... and then I also got a lot of basic starting content onto the site in regards to some other essay and presentations I have done. For this month, generating some new things, getting some new outlines to start filling in with some real writing, I think that will be a goal.
how to help others update their courses? make all design courses "climate design" courses?
the ISS is passing over my phone's GPS coordinates right now. My phone alerts me whenever this happens. Fascinating. Thank you astronauts.
Just go to bed dude, don't be an idiot.
How does the idea of the metaverse work within a framework of sustainability? within the framework of the welfare of all life?
What to write about today?
How can I help my colleagues with their class projects? how to climify any design project or course or prompt? Are there easy readings that could be added to anything? how about concepts or tools or ideas?
How does Reuse fit into your project our course? How might Carbon Dioxide be discussed or pictured? Can you use Project Drawdown as content for something? How about the UN Sustainable Development Goals?
What are we writing about today?
What about graphic designing can be made more sustainable? how can one use ideas like biomimicry for print design?
If, Sustainable Graphic Design Does Not Exist, then what can be done?
So, by this I mean, well, several things. It doesn't exist because nothing we do with our current systems are sustainable; it doesn't exist because it needs to be epehmeral, it doesn't exist because it comes together to do somethi communicating and then disappears or goes back to its raw materials afterward; it doesn't exist because its just a part of nature, you can just take advantage of things already out in the world and you don't need to make new things? it doesn't exist... ?
I have no plans, no real goals whats the point?
What am I actually doing or working on?
Why this series of prompts? what am I hoping to sustain with them? why do I just feel more and more spent and never better or more likely to succeed or anything else
So, How to help my colleagues and myself with this climate change stuff?
So if you are just gonna change what you have; update what you are used to, where do you start? okay, well, does it depend on the kind of projects? the kind of class? A type class, is there someway to add the evaluation of how ink dense a font is when printed? compare default widths – like given this line length in inches or something, how many characters fit? or given this line length in characters, how might one pick a font that conserves horizontal space? one that allows for slightly tighter line spacing so as to save vertical height? either fit more legibly on a page, or fit the same on a smaller page? how to compare that usefully? Are there energy questions one can ask about fonts? like you already have these on your computer, why not just use them? or perhaps digitally, this font has fewer weights and fewer characters, so while it might not be quite as useful, it does require less energy to install run and use? in terms of design for the welfare of all life how does what typeface you typeset something in fit here? What's the butterfly effect of Helvetica on a Greenland shark?
Another thing a design class might do is a specific KIND of project, like an event poster, or a conference booklet, or a basic storefront website, or maybe an app design!? How might content from or for something climate change related? Obviously a collection of things like the UN Sustainable Development Goals or Project Drawdown's solutions make for good designs – an app for browsing them? a poster of the key takeaways? a publication with the bullet points highlighted and explained? Alternately, those could be food for something else – like have a student pick one of them and do further research on the subject, and then design anything else you were planning on having them design anyway... but the goal or solution are the subsequent lens through which to examine the design prompt. Like, how does a book design improve access to education? how is an identity also a solution for all hunger?
Why am I always so stuck?
How can I document meaningful conversations better? the answer can't just be recording them, because, well, spontaneity and self consciousness and whatever else are made much more problematic with recording of things... but, how do I keep a hold of useful things I hear or say in more reference-able, actionable, helpful ways?
Why does design want to be sustainable anyway? why is it not sustainable in the first place?
why can't I do anything anymore.
I have no more ideas.
How am I going to do all the things I want to do? How do I make my house carbon negative? how do I renovate my basement and kitchen and install minisplits and go solar and whatever else? How do I even finish my yard and playspace projects!? those are things that should take just a few days at best...
Okay, so we need to save money. We need to save time. We need to stop goofing around. we need to stop watching shows??? How do I not waste time during the day?
What things to do?
Can I start live streaming more?
How to get to the writing! what the fuck is wrong with me?
Okay, so for today, I felt like I had some cool ideas... now... maybe not.
can I help fellow faculty at MICA climify their courses? send that to the slack tomorrow. Also, just touch base with everyone you think you have ever had an interesting conversation with... what could be the harm? What are you trying to say about sustainability and design?
find a business & life coach? find a therapist? go to the doctor? do I need some mood stabilizers? do I have ADHD?
Look into Paul Virilio: he was mentioned in two different things I read today. Both referenced the same quote: When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck
Seriously.
What am I trying to do?
How might we re-envision communication design as a decentralized, guided process that anyone can be helped to do for themselves and their contexts? how can the world at large be the client? how can "the natural" be part of all communication design outcomes? how does the welfare of all life factor into every decision?
I don't have answers to these things, or if I do, I don't understand how to do them in my own life, my own practice…
okay: It should be possible to bicycle anywhere
if I really think that, then what am I doing to help that be the way things are?
who should I talk too? Graham Coreil-Allen? Bikemore?
What other groups, orgs, people, institutions, departments, etc. overlap in this cause?
IS that an opportunity for communication design? helping show these overlaps? helping make these connections? the designer as connector? is that a good outomce of a sabbaticcal, that one has just talked to a lot of people and made connections? what is the "work" that comes out of that then? is it that there are just inlets into classrooms? opportunities for design to be accessed by those that may need it? not as design savior, but as collaborator? not to BRING in design, but to be a colleague, to be a designer with them, for them? do I know how to do this? how do you learn these alternative ways of thinking, acting, designing?
design for the welfare of all life
R. Buckminster Fuller referred to our planet as Spaceship Earth. We are all here together hurtling through space without a resupply mission to help us. How can we design with this in mind? How does it change what we're doing? A "how might we" question is a bit different when the "we" is all of spaceship earth no?
Human centered design loves the how might we question.
What are the better questions to kick off planet centered designs? What does this destroy? Should we make this at all? Does this make Spaceship earth easier to live on or worse? what does this feed? How does the waste of this idea compost into future posibitliies? Waste = Food.
For MICA
The climate crisis is simple: There are too many greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We put them into the atmosphere; we must get them out.
So, all we need to do is get the greenhouse gases back into physically sequestered forms right? Simple.
But that's why its also hard. There is no correct 1 way to do this. We also need to do this in ways that don't further degrade or destroy ecosystems, social structures, etc. We need to do it in ways that help strengthen natural and social systems. Can we do it with LESS reliance on technical systems rather than more!? Can we do it with MANY small solutions instead of just a few gargantuan ones?
And WTF does graphic design do about this?
What ways to communicate and signify this are there that we haven't tried already? what better ways are there to disseminate this information? Is that the important part? do people care about the information?
What am I trying to do?
What can I do to help a place like seaborne?
Okay, had a meeting with Impakter today. What can I come up with to write that would be good to share? a good fit for that site???
Seems like this is a good way to make some connections, be involved in some more important stuff? So what would be good to write there from my angles? Open source as part of sustainable design? deisgner as detective to find problems, but then turn them over to the "correct" people for solving them? Designer as the guide to help OTHER's discover and solve their own needs? just rethinking and showing alternative futures we can point society towards instead of where we're heading.
For something like Learning Design for Sustainability, Scott Boylston doesn't actually "know more" than me — what's my problem; why can't I figure out how to do something with this knowledge? Classes? books? Projects? what is holding me back, what is keeping me from DOING. Am I afraid that I don't actually know what I am talking about? how does one get over that fear? how do I really learn or prove to myself that I've learned what I need to know then?
This isn't a new problem, this has ALWAYS been my problem!?
Am I any closer to doing something useful or meaningful? when is the day to start performing everything? live streaming any "libre" thing? how about all this goofy tiddlywiki stuff? building a home brew website? how about considering the footprint of said site?
how does this tiddlywiki become a useful piece of the web? my practice? pedagogy?
Okay, I gotta get back to the heart of this: the writing. Yeah, I need to compile notes and references so I make them correctly, yes I need to keep reading and listening and taking notes or whatever. But I NEED TO WRITE down my thoughts!
why is sustainabiltiy important? why is graphic design a way to do something about it? how if GD useful? why do aesthetics and sustainbility matter?
so, maybe I go back through some of my WDSGDLL ideas and really flesh them out? that will for sure lead me to new things, but already I've spent a lot of time and energy thinking there, so I should be able to get pretty far pretty fast.
An outline?
This — This meaning SUSTAINABILITY; meaning CLIMATE CHANGE — is important and popular because it has to be.
How do I make this — what this do I mean here though!?? — a video? a podcast? don't worry about it being important or followed, its temporary, or at least, that's the proposal – this is for now; for the present, for the near future; it will probably end by fall of 2022...
What am I trying to do today?
Can I get Impakter some things??? What to write for Impakter?
What do I already have on here I can recombobulate for them???
Month four of the idea. September was a pretty low output month, working on some other projects, and dealing with a general depression/malaise/lost feeling...
020210911
I don't make my work for myself, I make it for humanity — Agnes Denes
Okay, this day is terrible already.
Dirty furniture had a cool idea – here are these themes, we'll do just 6 issues to cover these themes, here's a rolling release schedule that as we get to each one it will be published, sort of inbetween magazine, journal, etc. Can I do this over the next year? I'm already losing time and options...
Don't do negative speak.
Where were we?
What have I been doing?
Why do I keep screwing up the same ways over and over again?
Why don't I learn from my mistakes?
Write up some projects with the lens of Sustainability or Social Design as the way to perceive them?
Link to the things themselves?
Interface for starting new design projects?
Month five of the idea. September was a pretty low output month, and now its looking like October will be/is too... working on some other projects, and dealing with a general depression/malaise/lost feeling... trying to do some house stuff, working on up to date HVAC that should use WAY less energy long term AND be better heating/coiking wise. Also hoping to insulate the attic in a serious way. otherwise... watched too many shows on netflix, etc. and time just disappeared. Here's to getting back to things.
Race & Privilege in the Climate Movement
Climate impacts were always "far away" but now they're tomorrow, or NOW!
We get closer and closer to the horizon. It is astounding to LIVE in it now...
Abstract problems are REAL now.
Far off problems are now HERE
divisiveness of the conversation is still better than no conversation at all.
This affects the environment but also really our health, physically and mentally, etc.
climate depression
in just a few generations we've gone from seeing the planet as a thing that governs itself and create a wonderful habitat for humanity to a sobering perspective that we are actually driving the planet, and we can control the health of the planet – we're not just passengers on spaceship earth, but we're driving — are we going to help, are we going to transform how we participate with the planet?
images of earth from space.
how to actually GET this, that we might be in charge, and how do we learn to drive this planet.
There is a huge interest in this because of ocean acidification, not just the climate changing... (but they are all linked together... so f.)
this is a food and subsistence issue (≈12:00)
CO2 is an agent of warming in the atmosphere – but dissolved in water it is an acidifier
the things we depend on most of all we seem to wreck the most.
get out of the academic, what are the solutions!?
most of the solutions have co-benefits.
Lakelia Jenkins: "A solution is only a solution if people use them"
You're not going to come up with solutions sitting in your office on a university campus, you need to be in conversation, in dialog, with people making decisions in the now...
There are going to be disparities in how people are affected, so what are solutions that work for ANYONE, not just people within a certain income bracket or zip code...
Science is part of it, but its just a part of it...
Solutions that don't fit the culture and context of the moment, or of the people that need to use the solutions are just theoretical... you have to convince the people on the ground, whomever sets the thermastat or maintains the building services...
solutions, just because you say they are solutions, doesn't make them solutions...
Even well informed experts need some humility — we can't do it alone. This is cool, but... its also hard and scary
we thought we understood what was going on in the world, but did we??? no.
We're all a little less sure that we know how things work?
pay more attention to the world around you.
We have climate reckoning, racial reckoning and pandemic all hitting at once... and things are going to get weirder and harder from here, not immediately better. There are a lot of blind spots, so empathy and humility are required for moving forward. we have a lot to learn and need a lot of collaboration and listening to move forward.
John Lewis faith over optimism.
how to make this world one that we are proud to pass onto those after us. There will be setbacks, but we have to move forward with intelligence and courage. Let's not play odds, let us look at what is at stake.
Rebecca Solnit: hope is a verb.
Our ancestors sacrificed everything to provide a better future for future generations...
Climate Justice is the Only Way
Weather channel?
we should see climate change as a national security issue
this isn't about plants, animals, its about things happening today — we can make it about short term economics
It is about social issues; the people most affected are the poor, the marginalized...
The people emitting the least are the people hit the hardest
The future is screwed so we can be more comfortable today.
We can't just talk about the physics, or the environmental aspects. Where can you hit on the "kitchen table" issues?
It's difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it – upton sinclair?
Easy to see, think about problems — what about the solutions?
A world built upon renewable energy is really only a good thing.
Composting IS a solution, Family planning IS a solution, you don't have to put solar panels on your roof to make a difference.
We need all kinds of solutions, personal, public, private, city, state, country, international, faith based, community orgs, etc. ...
Climate policy really happens on the local level. > where buses go, can you even put panels on your house, etc.
Urban heat islands – reflective surfaces on pavement, urban greening, everything can be thought of as a part of this!
effects are felt AT a place, so regardless of the "global" nature, we need to design at neighborhood and city level!!
Engineer cities for thermal justice. !!??
how to take excess urban heat and then DO something with it in the cities?
If we think about the environment and social/racial justice and resilience, we can build better, so many opportunities are opened... we can do something about all these problems, improve them together not at the cost of each other.
Scientists are usually cautious; they usually are conservative; so how can we empower the tech and the people innovating...
We can't decouple climate and justice and health and anything else...
Most people will be better off. There will be all kinds of new job and business opportunities. The only people that won't be are the wealthiest probably... wtf.
All infrastructure and agriculture, etc. requires rethinking and remaking.
The Climate-industrio revolution?
"That's not economical" usually means: that is inconvenient for the existing powerful people... or, Entrenched Interests Hate Change (≈18:30)
Stories for how things are better? where does the hope or energy to do this come from?
The inertia of the old school can seem like a drag, but younger people understand this...
Georgia Climate Project > could be good to look into?
People resonate with stories; with nostalgia; not just dystopian future stories...
The solutions side of things actually has a lot of common ground. It is more the political side, the large scale side is where some of the narrative issues lie...
It makes sense to be more efficient. It makes sense to find more spaces for job creation.
with Jonathan Foley
a moment of climate solutions.
we've as humans been around for about 6 million years
we have always LOCALLY affected our environment. But now we affect the whole planet at once.
More than half of all people on earth live in cities
everything is exponential growth...
during the last 50 years more has changed than in the entire sum of human history? (how is this calculated or figured out? ≈1:48 min mark)
This is an inflection point.
A global economy linking soy bean fields to pigs in china is clearing the amazon of its rain forests...
≈30% of tropical forests have been lost.
Agriculture is a global force. 35–40% of ALL land on earth is used for Agriculture!?!?!?!?! (again, where to find this stat to fact check?) (3:55)
70% of H2O we "use" is used for irrigation
These are obvious, seeable changes.
Atmospheric changes are way more invisible, more subtle.
Greenhouse gases are higher than at anytime of human history (not planetary history... but yeah, in terms of what humans have experienced its the warmest)
"The great acceleration" – All since the 50s?
Climate change is the biggest things - our use of energy, land, resources, etc. lead to this...
If you are already having a hard time, its gonna be way harder.
Burden is on future generations.
Could be hopeless... BUT! it is not.
We have gotten healthier. Children have dropped (5/woman before, down to 2.4 globally). More literate.
We've improved A LOT of things for everyday people; now how can we do something for the planet?
Build the future we want. We get to build the future we want. We have to choose a good future. Build a futre where people AND nature can thrive.
Choose between the people we are, or the people we can be.
What can we do to make it better for those after us? where are the potentials?
How to Feed the World and Shrink our climate footprint
How does the food system need to change to help solve our environmental problems!?
land use
there isn't just one thing that causes climate change.
it is everything, driving, heating our buildings
none of it is deliberate
the solutions too are numerous, there isn't a single thing to do.
land use, energy, transportation...
social side of things are moving much faster. This is where we need to make a lot of ground.
cost of renewables is dropping
vegans and vegetarianism is increasing. this is all collectively positive.
food system is about 25% of carbon production
70% of deforestation is in 2 countries: brazil and indonesia. This is not for "food" this is for global commodities...
source crops from places that are not deforesting lands!? > can an individual do something about this?
NOX is a horrible GHG. (≈11:25) accounts for 3x the effects of GHG heating that flying does...
Nitrates are also bad in the water systems
managing nitrogen is also a climate problem.
"red sky in the morning" when we solve the climate, we have a nitrogen problem next!
cumulative impact of human society as a whole... solving the climate problem, the energy problem, whatever without thinking of our larger societal metabolism can have pitfalls!?
can we tie crop insurance to better environmental policy?
biological insurance?
diversification
Nathan Mueller nitrogen cycle study?
we always want to do new things, but we can also focus on doing everything we do more efficiently... maybe not as sexy, but potentially more immediate?
do we need to produce all this food!?
food waste and shifting diets are the most important things in the food systems to make some action...
improving efficiency in food system is important but its the third, least useful lever to pull.
Degraded land takes in a lot of carbon at first, but then there is a sort of a ramp down, and then at a certain point there isn't more carbon sequestration into the soil?
30% of our emissions are really hard to abate – flying, trucking... some are easy, what are the easiest industrial and energy sources we can get rid of!?
we can't assure that things are sequestered permanently... trees, farm land, etc. are all transitory!?
tactic: just file lawsuits against new coal, etc. fossil power plants, after stalling them renewables end up cheaper and you don't have to worry!?
with Jonathan Foley
Stopping climate change
Everything we do is connected back to climate change – water, food, health, security, etc. (Everything Is Connected)
if we don't fix climate change everythign in the future will be way harder.
GHG have been building up... they can either just keep building up, OR we can bend the curve, start "drawing down" ghgs — drawdown is the moment when the GHG levels start to decline.
How to get there as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.
What are ghgs? heat trapping gases.
We have them on purpose, they are what make earth habitable.
Natural vs. Anthropogenic ghgs
simple physics: they let in solar radiation, but trap thermal radiation.
we have warmed the planet by 1 degree C - the last ice age, average temp was only -3 C where we are!? (≈ 6:00)
Where do the gases come from? (≈6:14)
GHGs are mainly coming from burning fossil fuels, CO2 from fossil fuels is 60% of GHGs... but we do some industrial chemistry, we burn forests, then we have a lot of methane from agriculture, and then industry... then there's a bit of Nitrous Oxide > too much fertilizer! and then Fluorinated gases... there is a chart (≈6:14–9:00)

Each gas works differently
Methane and flourinated gases trap more than CO2, but then methane breaks down to CO2 fast...
Source vs. Sink
Sources add, sinks remove.
If the sink is bigger than the source then our GHG levels will go down!!!
Pull the GHGs out of the atmosphere and put them somewhere else... Mainly Forests and Oceans.
Todays Atmostphere: ≈13:15

6 major sources of GHG pollution
we have only 2 major sources of natural sinks.
We need to bring the sources down, and then we need to support the natural sinks, as well as add some new kinds of sinks.
Three main principles for stopping climate change:
woah, okay. I'm at a loss ideas wise. however, I have started to go through some videos and online "courses" I had meant to do a long time ago. its been mildly rewarding. hopefully some new ideas and connections come out of all this.
with Jonathan Foley
Reducing sources are the most important things to do

food and electricty are equally important to do something about
buidlings CAUSE 6% but they then are interconnected with electricity grid, land use, transportation, etc.
The rest of "other" is everything else, but its yet more related to energy, gas leaks, etc.
5 things cause 90% of climate change GHGs
Each sector can be treated on its own...
Electricity: 25% of GHGs the production of energy from burning fossil fuels generates the GHGs
we send the electricity to buildings and industry
focus on efficiency and then shifting production to renewables, with this is the requirement of remaking the grid

food miles isn't really important. the big issues are deforestation, methane from animals, NOx from too much fertilization
same, efficiencies are important, specifically FOOD WASTE. 1/3 of food is just thrown away. Food waste in developing places, the problem is on getting the food to people, in US, etc. its waste at the consumer level
meat based diets are worst
stop deforestation
improve agricultural practices on all the land we are already farming.
regenerative agriculture > can also be sinks?
food solutions: 
high temperative, energy intensive processes – steel, cement, chemicals, plastics...
plastic is more of an environmental problem, less a climate problem
most importantly, we just need to swap CFCs and HFCs for better refridgerants.

how is waste a better resource? instead of just waste?
10 of 14 is roads, 2% is flying... everything else — boats, trains, is 2%... so most importantly is reducing road mileage.
1 gallon of gas is 20lbs of CO2
Fuel efficiency... electric over gas... anything to reduce gas
even better, replace road transport with anything else that doesn't use fuel — bikes, walking, video conferencing, etc.

Residential building use more, emit more than anything else. Hot water, boilers, furnaces. Leakage in AC and appliance refrigerants
heating in your building might be more than your car?
massive efficiency improvements required, non fossil fuel energy sources for everything... address refrigerants

mostly flare off gas, leaking natural gas pipelines, etc. this is super low hanging fruit.
to wrap... 
Start with efficiency, then switch to the low carbon or no carbon sources/ideas
plenty of options, plenty of opportunity, plenty of job creation and new business space
Can "Reduce" and "Reuse" be used as visually and conceptually meaningful design constraints?
Green Acres is a 244 page publication focused on farming as artist practice, featuring long format essays from curators and artists, and (insert design strategy—fonts, color choices, layout, photography techniques, etc…).
Using print on demand technology and unbleached recycled paper we continued the sustainability goals of the artists included in the exhibition and catalog into the production of the book.
How to represent sustainably focused artists and maintain a visually inventive book while avoiding tired “green design” cliches?
Green Acres is a 244 page publication focused on farming as artist practice, featuring long format essays from curators and artists, and (insert design strategy—fonts, color choices, layout, photography techniques, etc…).
Using print on demand technology and unbleached recycled paper we continued the sustainability goals of the artists included in the exhibition and catalog into the production of the book.
Collecting all notes from business coach conversations.
I am Kristian Bjornard, I am a sustainable design expert.
Affirmations/Aphorisms:
Clients:
Self Signs/Self queues to look out for:
Any of these signs mean that I need to reach out to someone, either my collaborators on the project, or someone... someone that can help supplement energy, ask questions, whatever...
Things I need to work on:
Stretch: what is beyond my comfort zone? Can I operate there? Create a new comfort zone, then what is outside of that? How can I do this over and over again to build new confidence? Need to shift and flex to do this. What ways can I find to live through he discomfort to a better place?
When do I feel discomfort? Why?
Pleasing my clients, mostly, not pleasing myself? Why?
New website.
Look for more connections, where do my different interests and ways of working and aspects of my work connect? (Teaching for example, what do I do in the classroom with students that I can do with clients?)
The Saboteur.
HOW TO BE BETTER? What is the alternative?
Mis-Alignment
Misc:
Too much mental clutter, what can I do about it?
Focus comes from doing things as they come up
Are there alternative ways to fund my business other than just hourly rates and project fees? * flat rates, XXXX/wk? Or per month? * should I be an LLC? * do I need insurance for anything? * what kinds of grants are there for some of this work? * funded proposals? * where else to look for new work? * who else can I collaborate with? Where to look for and find collaborators? And would they have money? * talk to more people
Goals?
DIRECT LANGUAGE: Say what I want, do it, bill it.
HOW DO YOU PRACTICE THIS STUFF TO GET BETTER AT IT! ARGH!
Procrastination: So I procrastinate, then I miss a deadline or run out of time to email someone back. Then I start getting anxious. But that makes me procrastinate even more... then eventually I just can't or don't do the thing at all — I've missed the window, or I perceive that I've missed the window and then just don't even follow up...
Make everyone a Co-learner, Co-partner
Share my gold nuggets
"Hey I like this thing do you want to talk more about this..."
Make the world more just and sustainable for everyone.
What platforms? How to get out my content? How do I make things BIG!? (Do I want to make it big!?)
VALUES: * family * health * carbon drawdown * ???
How do I highlight my passions? Highlight them in everything on my website, in project write-ups, etc.
Why do I want to avoid social media so much?
The world has shifted to fall into alignment with my passions
It is hard work to continuously work on something. Share the passion.
STRUGGLE: When behaviors change, feelings will follow...
There is tension as these things continue to change at different rates and effect each other... pull on each other
I'm a bit lost. That's not going away.
I am interested in how libre design tools can be useful for the contemporary designer, as well as play into the larger ecosystem of sustainability, social justice, fair access, etc. How can we take tools like TeX and use them for more things, more kinds of projects? Can I typeset and layout some basic projects I do using something like TeX?
What else do I need to know? How to control the output page size? can I spec different fonts for different aspects of the page? are there any kinds of funky margin adjustments that can be made? can you do footnotes as a running sidebar adjacent the text? how does one include images in a usefully controlled way? can I pragmatically make the image that I use bitmaps during the processing of the document or do the images already need to be the way I want to use them (in thinking about how to make sure images use the least ink for example, use whatever I have and then standardize the way they are converted... I suppose I write an additional imageMagick command for that upon finalizing the image selections and placements?
What else can I play around with? How is this more sustainable? less tooling? less reliance on stuff like adobe? less reliance on the newest, overly outfitted computer machinery?
do designers have a lot to offer all of these communities? funny that it seems like few typographers and designers are in the groups for tex and scribus and such. But! is that just bringing some biases and such with me?
Oh man, already at November... this is month 6? September and October were sort of busts — didn't add much, didn't write much. How do I get back to that original impetus — writing about sustainability and design and open source and all that jazz? Where do my answers and inspirations come from; or rather, where did they go!?
Random Notes I found on a stack of index cards:
Science!
stitch sustainability and resilience into your product, everything you do from day 1, early adopters will pay more for that!?
Creating the possibility for more and better futures; not less and worse futures (or even just "the same" futures...)
we are all on this ship together
reimagine a world where we are a part of nature
collectively what we are doing is crazy
we aren't just gonna engineer our way out of this; we engineered our way into this in the first place!?
care and activation????
Bottle neck????
Father Albert Fritch? jesuit priest? center for science in the public interest? earth healing appalacia?
Islamic foundation for ecology and environmental science
Yale forum on religion and ecology
it can't be a personal transformation that feels good just for me. It needs to be for the whole common good.
what we choose to do affects everyone around us
Why is talking about something more meaningful going to be better??? (what does this mean!?)
these ideas... are they self serving? how are all of these sustainable design ideas about doing useful, improving things, the welfare of all live, and not my own ego and/or glamour!?
Why can't I make good choices? why don't I make more inspired choices?
There are always physical manifestations of our digital worlds (physical implications?)
why is this time lost? why aren't there other ways to stay connected
Ecovention Europe: what did we actually do on this project that was useful??? Sara De Bondt manifesto??? Can I write a short essay for this and all my other projects that tries to explain/encapsulate what is important? what is a better format?
How do I keep the standard of living that I have without needing to own a house or a car?
Depressed. Hopeless. Afraid. Insecure. How did I get to this place?
The Libre Designer. Doing this talk again for the University of Utah. How to make it faster, better, clearer? > https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l7LN7mD5bPqEapWyD4K8JQHPbcwQDhF7/view
should I call it These Gestures Are Undoubtedly Utopian again?
FOCUS!
OMG. Other people on the internet are blowing my mind.
https://www.are.na/block/13817473
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My response to @nico-chilla 's block https://www.are.na/block/13817473
My complaint is that problem-solving is not a good defense of the value of design
Problem solving is bullshit. Okay, let's just say we're all in agreement on this... do what else are we saying is design? Maybe more importantly, do we need to define this?
So, problem solving isn't necessarily the thing (I mean whose problems? from what perspective? what context? is this a problem that even needs to be solved??? so many questions with that angle...) but... there is still some sort of agenda or ideology brought to a design task. And I think that's sort of an important aspect of what "design" is — its the most human impetus, seeing that something is missing or not working, and trying to do something about it. Everyone is a designer some of the time? Every job involves "designing" some of the time? Sometimes plumbing is just plumbing, but sometimes plumbing is designing. Sometimes graphic designing is designing; but sometimes its just working on a dematerialized adobe powered assembly line.
So, yes, everyone and every profession is sometimes a designer/design. But, I don't think this makes it meaningless. It is something worthwhile to learn and embrace. That you don't have to "be a graphic designer" just because you're majoring in graphic design; the "skills" can be transferable if you're willing to see the concepts, the processes at work.
And no, I don't mean design thinking and how might we questions; I mean the how do you translate your interests and desires and intentions into things — these things can be posters, websites, apps, books, zines, dances, songs, flags, chairs, gardens, whatever.
My complaint is that problem-solving is not a good defense of the value of design
Sure, but then what is? is is problem finding? question answering? speculating? narrative making? And I think that you're right, problem solving alone isn't the defense — that you come up with a new sort of thing is also important — and I embrace the idea that "new sort of thing" might also be an old thing, but brought to a new time/space/context/mixture with other old things..
"the intentional solution of a problem, by the creation of plans for a new sort of thing"
An intentional solution? A contextual creation?
Christopher Alexander's Notes on the Synthesis of Form starts out with “These notes are about the process of design: the process of inventing things which display new physical order, organization, form, in response to function.” And so there is this idea that some kind of form and some kind of function are brought together; not necessarily clearly for the goal of problem solving but that you've outlined some network of forces at work due to a given context, and that interplay reveals something to you…
I don’t think “design” in any meaningful sense exists beyond a historical and cultural zeitgeist, intimately connected with industry and technology. The right response to someone using their education as a stepping-stone to a job is not to show them how design is valuable to the world, but to encourage them to forge their own personal connection with the vibrant community and discourse around design.
Your last line is really the crux of all this here. Whatever your experiences are; design should be a way for you to better understand them and better secure the place you want to inhabit in the world based on those experiences (or in spite of those experiences I guess, so no one else has to experience them if they are justifiably terrible!?).
Perhaps in thinking about our experiences, and the experiences of others; not in a "user" perspective; but as people, we can also better grasp what a designer can do to take on wider responsibility in their work. This gets even more important if we take a "welfare of ALL life" lens, not just people, but the whole planets systems...
The other thing at play here? "problem solving" is something a single designer can do when you're focused on the form of something with a fairly specific societal fit; say modernism in Europe, it specifically fit its societal constructs, but this notion that new, "universal," intentionally simplistic forms could radically reshape culture doesn't really do it anymore … so we can't have a designer or two be the only people in the room "problem identifying" and then "problem solving" — any new "wicked problem" needs a lot of people; those actually affected; which might be different kinds of people, situated in different parts of the planet, affected in different ways!
But even just deciding "what am I going to have for lunch today" could be an opportunity for design; and is one that's totally different based on contexts, and would be best answered by a group brought together for the task of doing something about this question...
I mean, this can lead to discussions of various design vernaculars across time and place…
oh! so really, if we are bringing this back to a teaching/educational perspective; okay, so how does one learn about different ways design may or may not be defined? does design need to help others? Are we learning processes for engaging with the world based on our experiences? or are we teaching/learning some clever tools for form making? I feel that much of my "work" as a designer gets stereotyped as window dressing or that the asks even of the themselves are to make something look like something else regardless of where or when or who its from/for... Is taking design classes about learning short cuts to forms that are known to be "good forms" — in which case, yeah, what problems are you solving anyway (even if we don't like that definition), that's not design if its not new or isn't about making it repeatable or useful beyond a one off? That's just copying, that's just production line; that's making the car, not designing the car.
A lot of designing is making/designing as a hybrid, you think on your feet and iterate and change and adapt as things come together and the diagram of your forces continues to evolve... But when you just get to blindly making, well, you aren't really designing anymore; that's when designing is production... not "creation" … but now is this just another poorly defined and explained alley to navigate?
I'm tired of "graphic design" being an important adjectived design discipline I guess... and that UX and UI and whatever else you want to throw in front of design are somehow "different" — a book is an interface; most websites and apps are really just collections of posters… its all type and image and storytelling and whatever …
I'm tired of "graphic design" being an important adjectived design discipline I guess... and that UX and UI and whatever else you want to throw in front of design are somehow "different" — a book is an interface; most websites and apps are really just collections of posters… its all type and image and storytelling and whatever …
i couldn't figure out what to do today.
Why does everything seem so hard lately? And are these writings and ideas or just depressed journaling!
okay, so I think to much about things.
I get and email or a task.
then I over think it. I write too much, I question if what I am saying is explained correctly or not, I rewrite, I add I subtract, I try to explain way toooooo much... Then sometimes, that "did I write the right things" thinking sort of keeps me from just sending the email at all, or delays it so much its stupid.
The same for a phone call, I'm like afraid to not know what to say to someone on a phone call, or I forget to ask everything out of some weird paranoia/anxiety.
How do I get over this stuff? How do I think less!!!
I cannot bring myself to call back these people, why not. wargh.
Okay, I have way too long of a talk about open source and free culture and whatever else... but its fun to have a talk to give
how to make these things more understandable? cut them up into bits? publish the bits separately? can these be videos? live streams? how do I get to be "known" for this stuff in a more useful way — not because I want credit, or I have a big ego, but just because, hey, I don't see a lot of other designers talking about freeing culture... could be cool workshop stuff? And mainly I just want to find more ways to reuse and refocus my efforts on the same stuff over and over again to more easily be able to evolve and improve my perspectives... not be running around in quite so many directions.
A redo of an older lecture...
Today, did I learn or do anything useful? i don't know. I certainly wasted a bunch of time yet again. There are still soooo many things not done on my lists; and I got super mad at my kids for stupid reasons.
What is next? what is the point of all of this? who is this all for?
How can I do a better job documenting what I am thinking? feeling? failing? succeeding?
I had some personal insights, or some real reflection at least... but it just disappears as soon as I think it, as soon as I have the conversation with myself. By the time I got around to opening this the thoughts were gone… do I need to do this by hand then transrobe/edit?
A Talk about free culture and other related concepts.
For Henry Becker's class on Monday Nov 8
I am frequently working at this place, where, I am pragmatic, I like to make things that ARE makeable; but the ideologies, or the intellectual or creative space the projects operate in is utopian; at least as compared to "status quo" cultural production. (feasibility in technical aspects vs feasibility in actual practice?)
My name is kristian bjornard, I'm a professor of Graphic Design and Sustainability at MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art. I also run a design practice where I look for new projects that can fit into this "design for the welfare of all life" idea — how can every project be a climate design project; how can everything "signal sustainability" in some way...
We're going to be talking about the idea of "Free Culture" — meaning culture that you can do with what you wish; the production of culture in a way that allows reuse, repurposing, building upon, leaning from, mucking about with, collecting together, etc. While it might seem normal to think about big companies owning both the tools of cultural production, the outputs of cultural production, and the actual networks and spaces where cultural production takes place, this isn't historically the way its been…
The history of making, art, design, getting by in the world... people do things, other people find that meaningful, and then take that and use it, and perhaps add a little bit too it. So over time culture amasses ideas — useful and un-useful... features. Our present, culture is more and more UN free.
An important next step is to define what I mean by free. When I say "free" in this talk, I am meaning "free as in freedom" or "free as in free speech". I am not purposefully meaning free as in no price. Often things that are free as in libre, ARE free as in price, but having to pay for something is not the same as not being able to do with it as you wish. (Think about a 2x4 – I have to go buy the stud, but once I've bought it I can cut it into whatever chunks I want, use it wherever and however I choose... Everything should be this way…).
In europe, where there is much more thinking and working in this realm, they use the term "Libre" to make it clear the difference between freedom, free acess, free to do with as you choose, and free price — gratis. So, Libre not Gratis.
Way back in 2006 I decided that I was looking for alternatives to fossil fuels for my car... I found out that Diesels could run on vegetable oil. And this search led me to a group in Minneapolis called Sundays Energy that were running workshops on making biodiesel and converting your diesel so it could switch between vegetable oil and diesel as the fuel source…
Well, we ended up starting to collaborate on projects around this — working on peoples cars for them etc. And the main way we'd figure things out was by just trying to look stuff up online, or ask around on forums and such — free exchanges of information.
The people interested in driving on VO and biodiesel were also interested in more! We started getting asked if ww knew anyone that could build websites or design things, and we thought, hey, we can do that too... So when we started looking for tools to help build larger more powerful sites, we found Drupal.
Drupal is an open source website CMS. You could just download it, install it on your server, and boom, you had a big powerful content managed website. That this was "free" — both to muck around with as we needed AND free in price seemed amazing. There was also this community of developers that seemed to almost always be able to help you out.
???
Add more? talk less about this? get to the point faster , but yes add a bit more...
???
I decided to go to grad school. And so my wife and I moved out here to Baltimore.
As a grad student I was investigating the overlap of the Graphic Design and sustainability spaces. Trying to answer "important" questions like What does sustainable Graphic Design look like? and such... I found a free culture adjacent thread: Vernacular Design.
Based on various tirades I'd have, a fellow grad student recommended this book, How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand. The book walks you through this idea that buildings are fluid, flexible spaces that adapt over time to their inhabitants needs and available resources. The best buildings are the once most able to change, most easy to change…
Sidenote: Brand was a hippie modernist from california who's helped to be responsible for all kinds of things... the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, the Long Now Foundation, how we use the modern internet, all sorts of things...
But so back to How Buildings Learn, The real focus are the processes that allow a simple small building to turn into something more complex over time... And this sort of main key point, at least I took away, and that meant something for sustainability, was that need and availabile resources — time, materials, money, whatever — were a key part of the recipe...
Part of an evolutionary process being directly tied to need and available resources is that to save time and materials, you sometimes copy other people successful solutions...
So this "vernacular process" of brands means that forms and structures that do a good job at something get repeated; don't come up with something new unless you need to...
In his analysis, Brand finds all sorts of repeated structures, and even repeated ways that a place might collectively start and add onto their buildings...
This really reminded me of my work on Drupal websites.
Applying this to contemporary practice?
How does this vernacular process become a frameowrk for my own practice? you work unsefl-consciously, you let people see what you are doing, and you either take the feedback or colelctively work on other solyutions, and you only iterate new design when there is a need, or you have excess materials or time... How can this be applied to a design projcet of my own?
Yurt, geodesic dome... best way to encapsulate the most interior space with teh least materials?
I just drove all the way to connecticut for a meeting? what the fuck is wrong with me and my work.
How do I not be negative.
Okay, so talk the FLOSD stuff, The Libre Designer stuff, the talk I've given to Henry Becker's class and few other places... and turn it into a collection of web posts AND a printed piece that is produced with the F/LOSS design tools!
TOC:
This is based off a talk I have given to Henry Becker's classes a couple of times...
Okay, so, get write up of libre/free culture stuff. Get write ups of open source stuff... turn that into a publisheable zine — both online and physically. Design it with libre design tools. Live stream working on all this starting on Nov 15? can I do that!? I guess that stuff can save to youtube after the fact; its a way to slowly draw some other people to the feed(s)? Once I get started, then start to iterate on quality and planning?
I've been having a better week of things than the norm recently...
Now, I haven't made more or been more productive.
But I do feel at least a little bit better about prospects and things. How do I really start turning my thoughts and whatever into something? Who else do I need to talk to? what else do I need to do?
I heard an interesting woman interviewed on a podcast while walking — end climate silence — Dr. Genevieve Guenther — maybe I should try to find more opportunities to connect with others doing things like this? this seems like a Signs Signaling Sustainability opportunity: make it clear whenever you could be signaling sustainability/climate change in some way that is otherwise "silent"
Okay, so I am having an existential crisis; what does it all mean and all of that... mid life? just worn out and depressed?
what to do about it?
I gotta finish these projects... I gotta start some new different ones...
How best to publish and promote plastic project? are we far enough along? who do we tell or show things too!?
Starting on Nov 29 — live stream something ! Writing content in tiddlywiki? there, that is open source! Designing that content in latex or something!? there, that is open source. > The Libre Designer
Now, how do these things also connect to Sustainability? > Everything Is Connected
Related to 020211108140325 Ideas > The Libre Designer Zine
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How are The Libre Designer and The Sustainabilitist connected? What makes F/LOSD more of a sustainable approach to tools than proprietary models!?
I am hungry. shoot. snack break, then writing, then bed.
I have to go edit my post on Medium so it can officially be "published" on UX collective!? woah.
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Back to the prompt...
What connects things? what makes everything connect?
F/LOS is more sustainable... why?
partially I think this is due to accessibility. If we are entering a time in human and planetary history where everything human constructed needs redesigning on a massive scale, well then we need more people in more places and with more backgrounds to have access to useful designing software, systems, ideas, etc. The F/LOS model allows for this; its baked in. Share and share alike. Better access to tools — at least theoretically.
The linux ecosystem unlocks computers that are otherwise "too old" or "too slow" or whatever else: Is it fair that because mac updated something, Adobe updated something, and now the old computer I still choose (or have to) use is "too old" and now no longer supported? If the computer works fine; then lets use it! Installing something from the linux world I have found can give real life back to an older machine allowing one to give their computer(s) longer lives; replacing them less often; and thus greatly reducing one’s footprint; and just allows people that maybe can't afford (or just don't want) to upgrade physical hardware the ability to just keep on trucking...
what else???
Ideas for projects!?
Okay, here's an idea — what does the designer of 2050 need to know how to do/need to know?
How is this a project in a class? a whole class itself?
Come up with a utopian AND dystopian visions
what are designs that come from these conceptual places?
is design helpful? is it hurtful? can design save you from the future you envision? does it get us there? does it maybe make things worse?
what resources are available to make things?
does print exist? does digital exist?
Take a closer look at climate impacts on modern ecosystems with Hellmann—an expert on global change ecology, climate adaptation, and emissions reduction. Hear Hellmann discuss the inspiring road to solutions ahead.
Jonathan Foley talks to Jessica Hellmann
anticipate how climate change will change in the future.
biodiversity loss is a big concern globally a third of current biodiversity will be driven to extinction if not more...
for a place like Minnesota, it is at the boundary of several different kinds of ecosystems butting together. when you live on those boundary locations you are going to see WAY MORE change as things shift right in front of you very quickly.... changes are felt very quikcly in these boundary locations... Liminal ???
drastic changes to hydrolic systems
way more likely to have too much water when you don't want it and too little when you do need it
restore a lot of the wetlands across the midwest
"we drained those wetlands for agriculture, what if we put them back for agriculture AND for climate change"
wetlands capture water when there is a lot, filter and clean it, and because they then hold onto water they can help put water back into the underground aquifers
opportunities for creativity!
intersection of adaptation with prevention?
(5:58) warming is already here, so we do have to talk about adaptation, but! we must also still talk about mitigation
(6:50) big utility scale solar installs, what you do with the land underneath really matters, use the land to produce more pollinators and pollinator habitat AND sequester carbon through restoration. (7:51) When you are tackling climate change with a renewable energy solution WHAT ELSE are you also doing? The Co-benefits of restored habitats.
(8:20) What if in the name of farming electrons we put the natural habitats back
basically how can a solution generate power, but also increase biodiversity, restore water sheds, etc.!?
What benefits will come from tackling this problem? (10:20)
Likens to space race
there are a suite of options that are context dependent. local innovation, local solutions.
There are no one thing solutions
What gets you engaged in the solution? what gets you engaged with a community? Societal change at scale is what is most important... your individual actions can be a way in to a community, or asking for a governmental change?
A few people changing A LOT doesn't do much; a lot of people continuously changing A LITTLE is a great start.
(17:52) when you talk about solutions and common sense things, all the politics/partisan stuff melts away.
Jonathan Foley talks to Marcos Heil Costa
expert on tropical deforestation as it relates to climate change
different countries have different profiles of emissions — in Brazil its from deforestation and then the secondary agricultural land use — not just fossil fuels...
basically, the issue is more that china and the west WANT the things the agricultural sector of brazil makes; so if those places say they claim to want to do something about climate change then we need them to decide NOT to buy those things, or ask for them to be produced differently and pay accordingly.
political change EVERYWHERE, not just in Brazil. Climate Change = Political Change
storing more carbon in the soil is good for farming, not just good for climate change.
carbon benefits of SUGARCANE Ethanol are enormous. Ethanol from Sugarcane
You can use the sugar from the sugarcane AND then use the fibrous cane itself for secondary production...
you can recover and restore land using sugarcane plantations actually.
useful for reducing CO2 in general, but can also provide more kinds of work and other restorative practice and revenue...
it helps soil help water; helps during droughts, etc. you can see these other benefits as the more important parts, and just think of the carbon benefit as secondary!?
Jonathan Foley seems to think that the carbon sequestration prospects for better agriculture are over estimated?
integrate forests AND agriculture > say have some cattle in the forest instead of having to cut down the forest? > adopting on larger scale in Brazil
drawdown calls it silvopasture and agroforestry
Brazil is actually kind of a leader in climate solutions in these other spaces!? cool.
The practices of the last century haven't really done people on the ground much good...
How can we push, help? > its mostly not that people don't want to do this, it is that they can't either because of cost or whatever
we are all connected — the brazilian farmer and the western grocery store... Climate change is not just a fossil fuel problem; it is an everything problem, there are all these opportunities in agriculture, etc. > Everything Is Connected
What's the future of Green Transportation?
Jonathan Foley talking to Ryan Allard
How does transportation need to change to deal with the climate crisis?
biggest challenges:
how can we collaborate more
we need to find solutions together
there is no 1 entity that can do something about CC on its own/alone...
it is in all of our best interests to do something about climate change
transportation space specifically:
the car is an individual device for moving, this is stupid in the city.
traffic, congestion, space waste, air pollution, etc.
This means that electric cars are a band aid not a solution
behavior change
the impacts of our own behaviors
"everyone else is the traffic, I'm not traffic" — "they should all take the bus"
"nobody goes there anymore cause it is too crowded"
(3:56 timestamp)
biggest opportunities are electrified vehicles in general
more and more individuals can see how they fit into this ev ecosystem.
mobility but separated from people — more walking, biking, etc. partially inspired by COVID?
we can't just electrify ever vehicle and otherwise keep things the same, that will still be too many vehicles, too much gridlock... we need more and more different kinds of transport (US is lagging behind on this)
(8:18) — We have to think better than just take a bad system and but a battery in it...
there are a lot of other things that affect transportation that aren't on the surface transportation solutions
basically we need more flexibility
and how can solutions create equity and better access
what to do about air travel? reduce weight? change the fuel? bio-jet fuel? people pay drastically for luggage?
life cycle of how to grow biofuels
jet fuel is a good store of energy — can batteries replace this!?
Three cheers for carbon sinks! Get to know these climate solution powerhouses (from the land, sea, and labs) by exploring the best ways to keep them strong. From shifting agriculture practices and addressing human diets to restoring marine ecosystems, this unit delves into the opportunities and limitations of sinks as a tool to reach drawdown. Finally, take a step back to see the critical importance of centering human equality in the race to shift climate solutions to global action.
with Jonathan Foley
Natural sinks of carbon today. Oceans and forests.
These are not healthy; oceans are more acidic; forests are degraded. > how to give nature backup? how can we augment them?
Sinks:
While oceans are way more of the surface of our planet; the lands are way better at pulling carbon down out of the air. (a lot of the oceans AREN'T photosynthetic?)
So, relying on the current powers of nature leaves us 59% of our GHG emissions still in the atmosphere, so we need to do more, figure out more, support this more!?
So, forest sinks work like this:
So we can help maintain this by not clearing forests and prairies...
protect and restore the remaining forests we have so they aren't cleared. How to then put our farm land into new kinds of agriculture that will also "sink" some carbon...
use and restore degraded lands; reverse some of the previous destruction
Again Jonathan Foley says restorative/regenerative agriculture aren't as great as they may seem; there are limits, and they are temporary... Claims are mostly TOO big and TOO bold. it is part of the solution, not THE solution Everything Is Connected, Many things, not One Thing
we don't mange the oceans the same way?
oceans are 70% of the surface, but only 17% of GHG emission sink.
so we need to protect all the coasts; protect the reefs; mangroves, marshes, etc.... we can prevent climate change AND it helps adapt/resiliency
create new reefs? new oyster beds? new kelp farms?
R+D: maybe we can build machines to pull it down? can we then turn it into rocks? what if we used it for something? can we take the CO2 in the air and turn it into new fuels, etc.?
this is 10+ year out tech
Carbon sinks; related to reducing carbon sources
Improving society is a climate solution
Fostering equity; improving access to education, healthcare (particularly for women and girls), improving and strengthening the rights of indigenous communities...
population growth isn't really a climate change problem > rich people are the creators/causers of the problems;
I am always interested in Do it Yourself — why can't I be better at Do it Together?
Jonathan Foley talks to Leah Stokes
Dive into climate policy opportunities with Dr. Stokes, Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Santa Barbara. From local policies to global action, Stokes discusses the importance of equity, meaningful corporate climate commitments, and more.
policy changes to address climate change
this is no longer in the future
the longer we delay to do something the more and more expensive it is to do something about it...
there have been over 40 years of real discussion and action, but WTF, where are the changes?
We cannot wait any longer. Infrastructure decisions last for decades into the future. decisions we make today have a really long impact.
"a stitch in time saves nine"
not doing anything costs us soooo much money. the costs of not changing course now are also high.
climate action will save money for everyday people.
make smart choices so we don't have to close plants early...
we can instead be growing new industries that we can grow and evolve instead of things we'll have to mothball...
we live in a politcal economy...
really, these things are inconvenient for a few powerful people, so lets not talk about them....
(10:00) fossil fuel subsidies are $20 billion per year every year... what if we just stopped that? you don't even have to put that into something else, let's just not spend it... what would happen to all these renewable and other options?
focus less on consumer behavior and get bigger and more ambitious with the changes we want to make.
(19:00) how can less sexy things like building codes and transportation guidelines incentivize heat pumps and mass transit... so local government can have a lot of impact.
(24:00) by cleaning up the electricity system, it can power all kinds of things, it can be like 70-80% of our emissions... electrifying as much as we can, powering it with renewables, woah.
Climate Solution Jobs are mostly jobs that can't be taken over seas — we don't need to "get back" the jobs we lost, we can create all these new job opportunities in every city in the USA, well, every city everywhere.
We need more energy production everywhere, so again, its like more stuff everywhere!?
The end: There's so much to do, so little time, and so we have to employ a lot of people in meaningful ways!
Jonathan Foley talks to Ramez Naam
Explore climate solutions with Naam, a pioneering thought leader focused on energy. From the experience of climate refugees to the importance of government buy-in and positive climate messaging, Naam discusses the path to a brighter climate future.
Clear paths to safe, equitable drawdown exist today: reducing sources, supporting sinks, and building a more equal human society all play pivotal roles. Take a closer look—from critical features to dollars and cents—at Project Drawdown’s Framework for Climate Solutions, and explore dozens of known paths to a more hopeful inflection point. Learn why comprehensive, equitable climate action is the largest business and job creation opportunity in human history.
Reiterate 3 main principles:
there are a lot of solutions in each of these areas...
No one of these are big enough to do the whole job we have to pull them all together...
by deploying the solutions we have as they are now, we can do this even by 2040!? if we can fully get behind this and even do more!? well shit, who knows!!!
Foodwaste for our house is an easy solution! how to get it more widespread !? Zero Waste and the baltimore plan!? Baltimore Zero Waste Plan

Many of these things also SAVE MONEY IMMEDIATELY or at least over time...
Spend $28 Trillion; make back $145 Trillion AND have a planet that's mostly okay for humans and the life we're accustomed too??? This is not factoring in how much we will prevent/save from natural disaster prevention, etc.
(8:02) "The Biggest Business and Job Creation Opportunity in Human History"
KB: But wait, can we generate tons of new income and materials AND still not destroy everything? is this an oxymoron?
How do I start actually doing something with all of this? I've got all these notes and fragments? how does one start putting them together?
As I was working on this talk, I woke up one morning to find that Adobe had acquired the company Figma and their tools for 20billion dollars.
Obviously, this sucks for the entire design community. Adobe has done a lot of harm to the design community with their exploitative pricing strategy and their refusal the fix existing products. Everyone, even students, are forced to use it not because they like it they but because it is the only option, and have to pay hundreds for it. It's great to see other design tools becoming more popular in recent years as people start finding alternatives. The tools we use influence what we make and dictate the people who have access to them. Having a diverse toolset to choose from is good. Even if Figma doesn't change much in the first few years, relying on one company for design gives them way too much power in dictating who and how people design. – Amanda Yeh
20 billion? woah. And seriously?
Now, Figma isn't open source – it's built on a lot of open source tools, but the app itself is closed. However, the ethos around using the tool and the community that build up quickly around Figma IS open — how might this change moving forward?
Why bring this up?
Amanda's concerns: "that we're forced to use something because its the monopolistic hegemony, not because its the best or even good... "
This is a form of intellectual enclosure; and I have some other adobe examples that concern me.
Venzuela
In 2019, when the Trump administration put sanctions on Venuzuela, Adobe ended up cutting off access to creative cloud to those with neeuellan IP addresses. This is wrong...
So, we've got, CC just cutting people off with no warning or refund — this is a problem of freedom to access one's tools. We have a company dead set on maintaining a monopoly on the tools of our trade, and we also have a company that Loe $$$ so much, they'll do all sorts of strange collaborations... (rings of power things)
What would change this? I propose a new "design commons" — a library of design tools and resources shared and cared for by all
How would this work?
020220128 Talking to Henry Becker
As you are working out the philosophy, what are the other things that help concretize the philosophy
Binder: what are the resources: how to break them up A collection of things...
There is a practical application So, how to make that a key part of all of this...
Do you not want to pay?
"How to talk about books that you haven't read"
How can you get people the quick important info!
Images: write about the legal ramifications of the images
Images and typefaces are intellectual property: history of ownership and copyright, etc.
How to tell the story of Disney; the history of design; that you don't "own" materials; that creating visual language means you need to remix...
You can't own history?
The collective history of an object is OURs not some corporations
"People ignore design that ignores people"
How to we put the power into the people's hands: https://triborodesign.com/project/nike-nyc/
Its not the ownership of the things; its that you get paid to do things
Fan zines
https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/d3vx8z/the-12-most-radical-zines-of-the-moment
What's the "code" in Graphic Design and Art?
What's the outline: ????
How to make decisions less arbitrary: My color palette, why those colors? How to make it more accessible?
How to "open source" a brand guide > okay, this is how I do this, but I don't own this: how can you use these
I need money for travel, my time, and producing X books for whomever is participating.
And yet again, I'm here having problems.
Why am I such a failure? I couldn't get my grant app in, my internet crapped out and I ran out of time … why does everything get put off to the last minute? what can I do to change all of this? how is this project worth continuing? how does it get better? how does it help me do anything actually useful?
How much more work do I need to put into this thing to connect stuff together? to add more items? to break up complex bits into simpler, more reusable chunks? Am I trying to do too much here?
Henry Becker Notes 020220225
When I read this, it almost doesn't pitch "open source"
Do most educators just not get FLOS What else can you say, how to explain this
What existing projects, already use these frameworks...
How to make the whole thing more open — here's also these resources...
I have all the resources and research... how to just make it clear? Make it usable?
When we are talking about design education, we don't help students understand copyright and finding high resolution images, etc. to use as they see fit... here's what I am providing: resources that give them the ability to navigate copyright as well as how to find type and images that they don't have to pay a ton for...
There are ideological and practical concerns here.
Answer those questions in the writeup/workshop document.
Type specimen? - TYPE1 kind of class, just a way to learn about these other places to look for interesting type.
As I do more exercises:
Here are ways to implement these things into your courses — here are things I can do, or things you can just take to do yourself.
Start with the project sheet that was for Henry's class > can I do a project sheet for a few other easier/shorter projects.
And a page ....
Bucket list of the chaos:
Okay, I have to actually work on this.
So, I need to collect some projects.
I need to write more about the actual flos stuff?
how do I make this longer and clearer and more informed but also actually structured?
Okay, so here is the deal.
The zine is:
How to embrace the chaos? what am I "selling"? what do I want people to think about, or ask about, or get me to help them with?
didn't get very far...
So I am rereading a bunch of old things, trying to come up with a coherent way to start.
...
try to collect a lot of similar ideas into one place... how to actually make this a lecture?
Towards a new design commons.
How can we return to a sharing based visual culture
given our current climate crisis we need shareable, remixable, repurposeable solutions that can be adapted and localized anywhere. Singular, large solutions are fine, but we need a lot of small remixable, combineable solutions too. In the spirit of that, can we return to a conceptual model of cultural production that values freedom to use and resuse things is imperative.
The tools we currently use are of course increasingly problematic. Adobe just bought the prototyping tool Figma. At any point the tools we enjoy using can be consumed by some larger corporate entity… In 2019, due to US government sanctions against Venezuela, Adobe temporarily blocked access to the creative cloud to Venezuelan creative cloud accounts. Our tools can just be turned off, despite paying our "rent" — even the fact that we have to RENT access to the tools we need as opposed to being able to own the tools of our labor… RING OF POWER
These different actions of Adobe are all kinds of "enclosure" — meaning the walling off of access to the resources that we need. This is literal, as in the Venezuelan example.
Increasingly making it harder to access the design resources we had fairly unemcbuered access to and use of.
A new Design Commons then is in opposition to this intellectual enclosure. As Dunne and Raby put it, this is CRITICAL DESIGN design in popostion to the status quo, an idea showing another way.
What is the commons?
This isn't a new concept, this is a remix of how cultural production once happened. Until fairly recent history, ideas went out into the world and were used and reused and shared by those that interacted with the ideas. Over time, ideas and artifacts evolve, improve, change, adapt, and are sometimes appropriated to different places, cultures, localities, situations... this is how we end up with, according to Stewart Brand in How Buildings Learn, "Vernacular" designs — the localized forms, architectures, and languages that we have as communities.
Ellen Lupton's says in her 2006 lecture Univers Strikes Back that her book Thinking with Type was never really meant to be a book for design professionals, it was meant to be a book for everyone else. To create a manual where anyone could access the concepts and tools of good typography, because type is something that everyone needs! If we can zoom this thinking out even more, then being able to share, remix, reuse each other's creative works more effectively means that we can make sure that the tools and resources of design are available to everyone, because good DESIGN is something that everyone needs.
What is important in a commons?
David bollier defines a commons as the resources we collectively own that require moral community stewradship so said resources are available indefinitely into the future for people to continue to use.... and ten if we apply that to designing... we need some alternative ways to handle copyright and licensing. We need open ways of sharing and allowing access... the ideas and tools we need for open access exist already, we just need to be better at accessing and using them. For instance there are a variety of creative commons levels. There are all kinds of free/libre/open source softwares we could be using in our classes.Not only to grant students access to tools they don't have to pay a fortune for once graduated, but that there are also way more tools then. Some FLOS tools do things or allow for things that you can't solve if all you have is Autodesk or the Adobe cloud.
Creative Commons is now 20 years old. Creative commons solves tattrribtuing works in the present while still immediately making them avaialb efor remix and reuse. I don't want eveyrthing to be in the public domain. I think we should have to properly attribute and research and do our due diligence to use. Can we build a better design culture that shares work and acknowledges that we're sharing each other's work. Makes sure that the sources and paths and vectors that get people to a specific place are documentable and shareable as well. A series of solutions, a whole concept, can be followed. How does plugging in new parts or new works allow for the
We'll start with something that's sure to hook a roomful of design educators — an Ellen Lupton reference.
In 2006, Dr. Lupton said in a talk entitled Univers Strikes Back that her book Thinking with Type wasn't meant for designers, it was meant for everyone. That's because everyone deserves access to the tools and ideas of good typography. I would like to expand this idea out, and say that I think that everyone needs design and that everyone benefits from access to the tools and resources and content of great design.
To reach this aim, to allow design to benefit everyone, we need more access. More equitable, universal access to the tools and resources that allow one to create and learn about design.
While I was working on this talk, Adobe announced they were buying the online prototyping tool Figma. This is not abnormal for a company to merge or to buy future competitors. But this feels monopolistic. Adobe says that figma will be left alone. We shall see. This acquisition news coupled with the 2019 debacle where Adobe turned of all Venezuelans creative cloud projects. Photoshop, Illustrator, and indesign have all just become tools of industry and a form of intellectual enclosure that limits what is possible. This also might make one think that "the market" is the only place these ideas are supposed to be used and that the resources in GD
The idea that the market is the place that these things are supposed to be used. our cultural production is framed in terms of its usability or viability in the market, and not necessarily as a societal good.
As design educators, if we are creating new knowledge and improving and building what had become before. Should we be using tools that at any time could become inaccessible to us and our students? and resources that might carry restrictions on when, where, and how they might be used?
If we want to embrace openness, we don't have to look very far back into our collective pasts, for the majority of human history cultural production was open, shareable, remixable, we built upon each other's ideas, and this creative work happened in local contexts in ways that were often to the direct benefit of the communities involved. Stewart Brand outlines this in his book How Buildings Learn where he describes vernacular buildings, common buildings of common people in a particular place. Vernacular buildings adapt and evolve from the success of the community. As one's neighbors figured out successful building techniques those deemed useful would be propagated around the community, and that then failures were not repeated — successes are repeated and propogate out, things that aren't so successful or when something doesn't work out as expected, the community knows to try something else.
This is reflected in how open source software communities work too. Eric Raymond outlines a nearly identical system to Brand's vernacular architecture process while describing Linus Torvald's Linux kernel process. A community of hackers, building and designing linux, solved each other's problems quickly by finding errors, fixing them, and immediately redistributing fixes with the rest of the community so that failures were repeated as little as possible. Linux ended up "getting better" — meaning, less bugs and works the way developers are expecting — faster than Microsoft's windows improvements occurred at the same time.
Vernacular models, open source software... Siva quote
Open source software owes its birth to Free software, the brain child of Richard Stallman. Stallman's GNU project started with the GNU manifesto featuring 4 main freedoms. The gist of which is that code needs to be shared, code needs to be free to be edited and remixed, code needs to be improvable upon, and that if you do anything to some code, you should be able to continue to share whatever you've changed or added. The 4 freedoms reflect and echo the idea that things need to be shared, some things need remixable, and if you CAN share, then we beneift for the time. So we benefit from each other's work — AND — we can fail fast and fix things and share the solutions for the failures so we don't have to repeat failures.
GNU Manifesto: Designs must be remixeable, they must be accesssible,
Garth Braithwaitte says the same things in his open source design manifesto. we should share more, especially the failures... and so that we can improve design more quickly and as a community
Why is this important? why should we care? Why wouldn't we want to spend our energy solving NEW problems instead of resolving old problems? If we can't share and reuse each other's solutions then we are stuck resolving old problems in new ways and marketing and branding them as OUR way of doing something. I would rather we find ways things are already working and make them better for our local circumstances. This is what we need for the climate crisis!? local, adpatable, modular solutions for specific cultural, environemental, etc. customizations but that as solutions are found, designed, created, modified we all benefit and can figure out ways to conitnue to share and adapt and succeed together...
PRAGMATIC UTOPIANISM
We have the tools we need to do this. Open source software provides the functional TOOLS — there's proof this works (Open Source Publsihing and all the web stuff!?). There are also all the licenses and copyright/copyleft frameworks. There are all kinds of options from say, Creative Commons, for how to control and license our creative works for the benefit of each other, for the welfare of all life, as opposed to the protection of the market.
A Design commons is about social justice, its about sustainability, its about reducing the barrier of entry to designing, to solving our real problems, problems based on our needs (Papanek?).
Every job and sistuation can be improved by the frameworks and tools and content of good design. Let's get ourselves, our students, our colleagues better access!
Philosophically the solution is fully adopting a share-alike creative commons style, viral, license. We should track from whom and from where good ideas and colustions come from — BUT! we need to make sure that people aren't afraid to use or remix a solution for their needs. And our tools themselves, the file formats, the recipes, whatever is actually needed to make cultural production actually manifest, these need to be free too. Not free as in price, but free as in freedom ala the Free Software Foundation. Libre not Gratis.
- AIGA DEC project/syllabus reference – how to make this better though? evolve? shared license? you must attribute and share back? - Open Source Publishing? - blender - C4AA - Open Climate - Climate Designers project section - Google Fonts - Flickr Commons - Github: are there "design" projects on github!? - Eli Heuer - SIL - Enzo Mari / Autoprogettazione
How can we grab onto the places this is happneing already and make sure we build community, build support, etc.
If we want to solve our current climate crisis we need solutions that can be remixed, repurposed, and adapated to all sorts of scenarios — we don't need singular, universal solutions, we need modular, localizeable solutions. Recipes and the equivalent of visual and social lego blocks. The mentality is that we must stop holding onto intellectual property as physical property and see it as the foundations for our future. We must take care in preserving and sharing and keeping things open, un-enclosed, the things we have a moral, community attachment to from the perspective of designers and educators!?
Towards a new design commons: How might we return to a sharing based visual culture?
Given our current climate crisis we need shareable, remixable, repurposable solutions that can be adapted and localized anywhere. In this spirit, we must return to a conceptual model of cultural production that values freedom to use and reuse things.
Thread1: Design is for Everyone
We'll start with something that's sure to hook a roomful of design educators — an Ellen Lupton reference.
In 2006, Dr. Lupton said in a talk entitled Univers Strikes Back that her book Thinking with Type wasn't meant for designers, it was meant for everyone. Everyone deserves access to the tools and ideas of good typography. I would like to expand this idea out, and say that everyone needs design and that everyone benefits from access to the highest quality tools and resources and for making design. To reach this aim, to allow design to benefit everyone, we need more equitable access to the tools and resources that allow one to create and learn about design.
Thread2: Adobe vs. Everyone
While I was working on this essay, Adobe announced they were buying the online prototyping tool Figma. This is not abnormal for a company to acquire or merge with competitors. But this feels monopolistic. Adobe says that figma will be left alone. We shall see. This acquisition follows Adobe’s deactivation of creative cloud accounts for anyone registered as a Venezuelan as part of 2019 US sanctions signals pretty clearly: Our tools aren’t ours; our access can just be removed, despite paying our "rent" … Wait, we have to RENT our tools, we don’t own the tools of our labor anymore.
The Adobe Creative Cloud is a form of intellectual enclosure that limits what is possible. Our cultural production is framed in terms of its usability or viability in the market, and not necessarily as a societal good. Even the space of the Adobe loading screens are really an advertisement, currently using “community content” to pitch a TV show. This might make one think that "the market" is the only place these ideas are supposed to be used and that the resources of design are solely for commercial endeavors.
As design educators, we are supposed to be creating new knowledge and improving and building what has become before. Should we then be using tools that at any time could become inaccessible to us and our students? Or what about relying on resources that might carry restrictions on when, where, and how they can be used? Can applying open source principles to design help us improve visual literacy just like open source software improves computer literacy? A new Design Commons is in opposition to this intellectual enclosure. As Dunne and Raby put it, this is CRITICAL DESIGN, meaning
Thread 3: Frameworks and Models of Openness
If we want to embrace openness, we don't have to look very far back into our collective pasts. For the majority of human history cultural production was open, shareable, and remixable. We built upon each other's ideas, and this creative work happened in local contexts in ways that were often to the direct benefit of the communities involved.
Stewart Brand outlines this in his book How Buildings Learn where he describes vernacular buildings, meaning common buildings of common people in a particular place. Vernacular buildings adapt and evolve from the success of the community. As one's neighbors figured out successful building techniques those deemed useful would be propagated around the community, and that then failures were not repeated — successes are repeated and propagate out, things that aren't so successful or when something doesn't work out as expected, the community knows to try something else.
Eric Raymond outlines a nearly identical system to Brand's vernacular architecture process when describing Linus Torvald's development of the Linux kernel. A community of hackers, building and designing linux, solved each other's problems quickly by finding errors, fixing them, and immediately redistributing fixes with the rest of the community so that failures were repeated as little as possible. Linux ended up "getting better" — meaning, less bugs and works the way developers are expecting — faster than Microsoft's windows improvements occurred at the same time.
Open source software owes its birth to Free software as outlined by Richard Stallman. Stallman's GNU project started with the GNU manifesto featuring four fundamental freedoms. These freedoms are about the user being free to do what they wish with a piece of software. Code needs to be shared, code needs to be able to be edited and remixed, code needs to be able to be improved upon, and if you do anything to some code, you should be able to continue to share whatever you've changed or added.
Garth Braithwaitte says the same things in his open source design manifesto. we should share more, especially the failures... and so that we can improve design more quickly and as a community.
Why is this important? We must spend our energy solving NEW problems. If we can't share and reuse each other's solutions then we are stuck resolving old problems in new ways and marketing and branding them as OUR way of doing something. Let’s find ways object and social designs are already working and make them better for our local circumstances. This is what we need for the climate crisis!? local, adaptable, modular solutions customized for specific cultural and environmental constraints; and that as solutions are found, designed, created, and modified we all benefit and can figure out ways to continue to share and adapt and succeed together!
Thread 4: Tools, Software, Licenses, Copyright(left)?
We have the tools we need to do this. Open source software provides the functional TOOLS — there's proof this works. There are also all the licenses and copyright/copyleft frameworks. There are all kinds of options from Creative Commons to the GPL for how to control and license our creative works for the benefit of each other and the welfare of all life, as opposed to the protection of the market.
Creative commons (Which is now 20 years old!) solves attributing works in the present while still immediately making them available for remix and reuse. Not everything NEEDS to be in the public domain. We should properly attribute and research and do our due diligence to use images and content and design recipes. Let's build a better design culture that shares work and acknowledges that we're sharing each other's work, where reusing each other’s work is built in and a known, documented part of the design process. Make sure that the resources and routes that get people to a specific place are documentable and shareable, so that a series of solutions, a whole concept, can be followed and referenced and reused.
A Design commons is about social justice, it's about sustainability, it's about reducing the barrier of entry to designing, to solving our real problems, but problems based on our needs (Papanek?).
Philosophically the solution is fully adopting a share-alike creative commons style, viral, license. We should track from whom and from where good ideas and colustions come from — BUT! we need to make sure that people aren't afraid to use or remix a solution for their needs. And our tools themselves, the file formats, the recipes, whatever is actually needed to make cultural production actually manifest, these need to be free too. Not free as in price, but free as in freedom ala the Free Software Foundation. Libre not Gratis.
How can we grab onto the places this is happening already and make sure we build community, build support, etc.
Thread 5: A Couple Examples???
A Conclusion?
If we want to solve our current climate crisis we’ll need solutions that can be remixed, repurposed, and adapted to all sorts of scenarios — we don't need singular, universal solutions, we need modular, localizable solutions. “A Design Commons” conceptually serves this role. Basically: Recipes, tools, and the equivalent of visual and social lego blocks that are for all to use. The mentality is that we must stop holding onto intellectual property as physical property and see our creative production in the present as the foundations for our future. We must take care in preserving and sharing and keeping the building blocks of design and culture open, un-enclosed (These building blocks are the fonts, images, ideas, methods, tools, and prose we have a moral, community attachment to from the perspective of designers and educators!?).
Some references / things to investigate more / to cite for my A New Design Commons lecture.
How could you possibly be freer than you are now?
I don't know!?
Scrap of paper found in my piles: John Dewey and Roger Fry are all that are written on it.
The pile also includes a scrap, from a comfort inn notepad, so from my trip to Kalamazoo in October of 2023 to give a talk about Signs Signaling Sustainability and Design the Future Today!: "What do we need to know in order to make the world?"
How is the world made? does this relate to BauErden?
Another sweet scrap of paper:
Scrap of paper with some lecture notes
If design choices are so subtle, why make them, what's the point of making design decisions that no one will get or notice?
Prompt: take a book, analyze the book, can you figure out how it is made by that analysis?
Thinking about ideas for my Spring 2024 iteration of the class PRD232: Design for a Circular Economy
Focusing on Plastic and efforts into my project 3P: People Processing Plastics in the spirit of Precious Plastics
How does HDPE play into the Circular Economy, Closed-Loop systems, etc.
Where are there places for innovation, circularity, small scale manufacturing, local collection, workshops in every neighborhood, tool library style recycling, etc.
Justin Bietzel worked at Steelcase, maybe now works with Ryan XXX for MICA PRD
Baillie Mishler Prowl using Figma for presentation deck!
NYU Stern School of Business 2022 Research study <- What is this note?
Sawdust in plastic? how is this okay?
Design vs Regneration: held the same?
Presumed aesthetics w recycled materials: how to fight the presumptions for what recycled things should look or be like?
Tetrapak: there was a cool project where the tetrapak was turned into tiles that looked like metal or stone, find this.
Bio <> recycled / both can be circular
Sustainability, related to Definitions of Sustainability
Cambridge dictionary: The ability to conitnue at a particular level for a period of time
Brundtland report:
"Our common future"
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
What we should measure and how we should measure it
Net profits and loss > how to extrapolate out the bottom line to social and environmental issues, not just economic...
TDL: The three p's > people, planet, profit > people planet prosperity
The three pillars of sustainability, all three categories are necessary to support sustainability
the venn diagram > when aspects overlap, there are certain kinds fo outcomes.
but even better is the concentric circles, shows their relationships (nature can operate without a human economy, a human economy cannot operate without nature.
Not every entry in a checkbook is a deposit > no sustainable design is ever a perfect solution, but you have to have OVERALL benefits even if there are some debits.
Critique: doesn't go far enough, how to include culture perhaps as a separate autonomous element? are there other critiques? without making maters of culture explicit it can be neglected or forgotten
2012 > institute for manufacturing, university of cambridge, increasingly complex approaches to sustainability for designers
Sustainable Minds > user friendly LCA tool
sustainability isn't implied by these first two, not a "social" aspect, just looking at the environmental impacts
more about the focus than the name?
Sustainability is not new, for over 50 years experts have been convening with the purpose of creating a sustainable future for humanity
Bruntland Commision, 1987.: Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
UN Sustainable Development Goals > SDGs > end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities, and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind; explainer video: 'We The People' for The Global Goals | Global Goals > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpqVmvMCmp0
You can't really isolate goals; many of them cross... for instance, poverty, hunger, and quality education are linked.
Graphically revealing connections between goals can be good.
Stockholm Resilience Center > aligned the goals with the triple bottom line; they've interrelated the 3...
Pyxera Global > venn diagram with the goals in 4 larger buckets
clustering concepts can generate insights addressing multiple problems/challenges with solutions …
Wendell Berry Solving for Pattern anticipate unintended consequences... prevent new problems for arising... seek out patterns that help us more mindfully approach challenges
we are so obsessed with technologic innovation we miss other opportunities
thinking creatively doesn't mean just innovating new TECHNOLOGY
different forms of innovation align to different opportunities for The Triple Bottom Line
SCAD Design for Sustainability Graphic
how to see natural resources for ALL their constributions; all their resource potential...
Marsh example... you either see it as something to turn into a parking lot or whatever, or you see ALL the resource potential it has... all the ways that nature's ecosystems services do for us!?
high cost to replacing services that nature gives us for free
how do our perceptions create our realities?
become acquainted with teh dominant worldviews
treat others as yoou want to be treated vs. might makes right
"normal": modern society has gotten very good at take > make > waste processes...
live on youtube 202007271900: <https://youtu.be/fLfeWtOpFto>
MICAGD Summer Camp / LIBRE GRAPHICS with Kristian Bjornard
20200724 Update: My plan to use the F/LOS video conferencing platform JitSi Meet is not quite working out, so we will be switching to a zoom call!? And just a heads up incase it wasn't clear, this is less a "workshop" or "demo" and more of a lecture/walkthrough w/ Q&A and discussion.
A general outline for things I'll be trying to talk about and touch upon can be found on GitHub: <https://github.com/bjornmeansbear/lectureScripts/blob/master/theLibreDesigner.md>. And I'll also be trying to maintain an up to date document as things transpire during our time together Monday evening on EtherPad; this will be a way other than just zoom chat that links can be shared and questions can be co-authored or expanded upon in real time: <https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/thelibredesigner>.
Optional Homework: If you are totally new to the ideas of Free/Libre and Open Source, here is a great quick intro as to what is open source. You could look into the Free Software Foundation's definition of free software.
Tired of giving over all your money, attention, and energy to our Neo-liberal capitalist oligarchs? While to get paid you still might have to design for them; you do not have to use the software and computers made by them! Come on a tour of wild world of Free/Libre and Open Source Software available for Graphic Designing. (Inkscape, ImageMagick, Nodebox, Blender, etc.). There will be time for Q&A.
The realm of Free/Libre Open Source (F/LOS) offers deisgners not only a pragmatic approach reviving how sociocultural artifacts have historically been created, but also a critical approach that, through utilizing ideologically based software and tools (and having far more easy of access to software and tools) intentionally positions itself as antidote to status-quo capitalism. A designer will find more ways to make; less obstructions to their creative vision; and the ability to learn from and to give back to a community.
I am writing this as a sort of lecture/essay – but I will first be giving this as a series of live streams on Twitch (I hope); then as a "virtual workshop;" then perhaps as a presentation at a small DrupalCon...
Anyway, the goal here is to point out simple to complex opportunities for a designer to start to integrate the practice and ideology of open source into their practice.
Welcome.
My name is Kristian Bjørnard. I teach a variety of Graphic Design classes at the Maryland Institute College of art – mainly open studios for the seniors where they work on their capstone design projects, and then some web and motion and interactivity related courses for sophomores and juniors, and the occasional elective dealing with sustainability.
I first got into Free/Libre Open Source back in 2006. My first real, intentional entry into this world was using Drupal, a then novel content management system, to build websites. It seemed too good to be true – tons of people all over the world collaborating together to make a family of modules for doing all kinds of complex web things! Here was this amazing thing and it was free to download and free to use for whatever and however I chose? At the time I could never do too much more than occasionally participate in discussions around theming... but! Woah!
I ended up drupaling for a while... and then when I started getting much more into thinking about how design might be more sustainable, I was thikning about vernacular buildings[How buildings learn by Stewart Brand] and then how open source software like drupal evolved over time and adapted much like vernacular biuldings... and bam! I thought, oh, maybe something about f/los was more sustainable? I was also thinking that something like a typeface was important to make more accessible to more people for the purposes of sustainablity – ... and again, Libre type accomplished this...
The last sort of other path that helped lead me to "Libre designing" was being a publication designer and having a lot of projects with little to no art budget. So, let's say you're told you have basically $0 extra dollars for stock photos or hiring your own photographer, what are you going to do? Well, its another space I found – public domain and creative commons licensed images out among the piles of the internet... We'll get directly into this soon, but I just wanted to mention that my actual deisgn practice, mitigating the constraints of low budget projects, aslo accidentally led me to the ideas in the presentation...
So I've dabbled off and on with libre fonts, OS tools like Drupal, and then the occasional creative commons and public domain licesnsed imagery, etc.
This really got to be part of my practice when I ran a class about "Open Source Design" in 2018? (foot note class? footnote AIGA conference? footnote essay about the class?)
(anything else????)
Now, onto the libre designing.
For this array of ideas, I'm first going to introduce you to F/LOS if you haven't really had much of an introduction to it in the past. Then I'll try to outline from simple to complex how a designer "liberates" their practice. At the end, and throughout, I'll point out reasons that perhaps this isn't more mainstream incase you're not already thinking that...
Some Content Warnings:
Hopefully you know what you're here for!
The foundations to the Free/Libre Open Source arena has several interesting connections to the greater domain of Graphic Design. As such, I continue to be surprised how little our discipline seems to know about and partake in this world – outside of web design.
I will talk too long about the foundations for F/LOS if I get into it, so I'll skip over some backstory for now – but! the start of free/libre open source is partially related to graphic deisgning.
There is a great anecdote about Donald Knuth and being so offended by the bad typesetting of his computer programming books that he decides to invent a typesetting/layout program and magical font to draw all other fonts; this becomes TeX and MetaFont, super great ideas that you can still use today ... And then the origins of free software and GNU are that Richard Stallman is so upset that Xerox won't share the firmware code for a printer that isn't working right, he flies into an ideological, libertarian rage, quits his job, and vows never to make or use non-free software...
If you want to investigate this all more; I highly recommend finding out more about Donald Knuth – he is just an amazing person – and TeX and MetaFont – or even trying to use TeX (MacTex, LaTex, ConTeXt or some other fork)... If you like HTML and CSS you'll probably like "designing" documents in TeX. > check out Overleaf <https://www.overleaf.com/>. There are some cool old videos of him showing people how to use computers in the 80s...
You can also read all sorts of history and foundational information from, by, and about the Free Software foundation (<https://www.fsf.org/>) and GNU (<http://www.gnu.org/>)...
Oh, And then there is "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric Raymond, which does a good job outlining how Linus Torvalds created his world of distributed hackers to rapidly build and improve upon the Linux Kernel as it evolved... This is also a foundational text for how "Free/Libre" became "Open Source"... And can be useful for thinking about how or why "Open Source" is so pervasive in web design...
FYI: The history of intellectual property (at least in Europe/USA) is largely one of those in power trying to control things; not the less powerful trying being protected. (1556 establishment of the Stationers’ Company’s monopoly in England was largely intended to help limit the Protestant Reformation movement's power. By putting the entire printing industry in the control of this company, the government and church could prevent the dissemination of ideas. (from <https://lawshelf.com/coursewarecontentview/history-and-sources-of-intellectual-property-law/>))
Some examples to get things framed correctly right away?
- What sorts of common technolgy? what kinds of more general examples can I give them? - 1974 & 1979 AIGA/USDOT Pictograms/Symbol Signs (<https://www.aiga.org/symbol-signs/> & <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT_pictograms> & <https://thenounproject.com/aiga-icons/collection/symbol-signs/>) - The Idea of a RECIPE. - Any other tie ins with sustainability or anything else?
Okay, so we'll be talkinga about Free, Libre, Open Source – let's make sure we define F/LOS!.
What is Libre Graphics?
When I say "Libre Graphics" I am linking to the Free/Libre part of Free/Libre Open Source.
(this is where Stallman goes!?) Printer anecdote? His ideas of "freedom" > FSF/GNU
When "free" software st arted it was about the freedom to do with software as you pleased.
[stallman golden rule slide?]
FSF 4 freedoms.
Free as in Freedom, not as in price! (Libre not Gratis) You can still charge money for F/LOS; the point is to not stop someone from doing what they want with a thing (like when you buy physical objects). The point is not to give everyting away and go broke and die destitute in the gutter. I'll try to point out as we go why this is useful.
I say "libre design" instead of "free design" for the same reason – we don't want people to think that this design shouldn't cost anything; that it should be free to have done or to use; but that it should be about increasing people's freedoms, increasing liberty; not locking someone into a software or design ecosystem. Not prohibiting someone from doing what they need to do or want to do with a design tool; with a design.
Basically I mean that the recipe for any design should be shared for anyone to use; and the software, tools, or equipment should be as shareable and attainable too (like you might still have to buy equipment; but ideally its "open" as well so that you can hack and customize and control physical and digital equipment the way you need to while executing the recipe the way you want as well).
I'm interested in this for a few reasons:
- from a sustainability angle, many of the status quos ideals and practices are not useful; endlessly upgrading computers and software; intentional obsolescence... - If we are decentering, decolonzing, anti-racisting design; well then we can't use white supremacist computers, software, tools. - Historically culture is created using processes F/LOS is often recreating - If you are speculating other futures, and you want to get away from the "possible" and into the probable, preferrable, or impossible, well, agian, why use the regular, everyday tools? - I am bothered by the hegemonic sameness of so much design, is part of that because we are all using the same computers and programs?
The libre designer is a utopian device; a character as in any story; to show you another way, to be emblematic of other ideals. The libre designer stands for design tools and outputs that help return cultural production
There's so much to talk about :)
There are so many... we can dive into this more at the end if anyone cares; but in general there are truely free/libre licenses like GPL, CC share alikes, Apache; and then there are permissive license, MIT being the most used/known one. Basically, the libre licenses say that if you want to use this, great, but whatever you use it in also has to be open and shared in the same way. the permissive licenses say you can use this, and all you have to do is try to make it clear that you used this in your program or code somehwere; you _do not_ have to share your code the way I've shared mine... One is viral; one is isn't...
We'll start from the most clear and concrete things and end with the big, abstract, blurry ways to liberate your designing.
The easiest way to get started on this adventure is to change the photos, illustrations, icons, etc. that you might use in a project. This is easiest for several reasons:
1. You don't need to change OS or software – any "free" image works with any tools you are already using. Nothing to install; turn on; reconfigure... 2. You don't need to ask permission; you're probably already finding these things for projects and clients anyway... 3. You sometimes don't even have to look in new places; just change the way you search/look... 4. You also actually solve a bunch of potential copyright/contract issues by finding "free" imagery
Okay! so what does F/LOS mean to imageS?
So what we're looking for when we are looking for F/LOS imagery is imagery that is somehow licensed for anyone to do with it as they want. This often takes the form of "public domain" or "creative commons" or sometimes the "free art" or "libre art" license.
- Public Domain - Creative Commons 0 (CC0) - CC Share Alike (and its variants) - GPL? - Libre Art? - MIT - UnLicense - Anything else? (what does undraw use?)
Good places to get started finding this stuff...
- Unsplash (<https://unsplash.com/>) - Undraw <https://undraw.co/illustrations> - the Noun Project <https://thenounproject.com/> - Creative Commons Use&Remix section: <https://creativecommons.org/use-remix/> & <https://search.creativecommons.org/> - RawPixel Public Domain: <https://www.rawpixel.com/category/53/public-domain> - dover clipart / finding and scanning old things (photographic personal prints, books from before 1925)
Once you have liberated your imagery and graphics, the next level is your fonts. Almost everything will work still with your existing hardware and software, but it is a magnitude harder to find, download and install some of the F/LOS fonts compared to just images...
There are some open source fonts already installed on the average computer; and adobe fonts brings in some of the google font library; so you can just turn a few on there to get started super easily
<https://fonts.adobe.com/foundries/google>
Google fonts is doing a lot of cool new stuff. They're hitting this variable font thing pretty hard, and part of that means that almost any newer typeface is being converted to a variable font. This also means that almost all the newer google fonts have the full 9 weights + italics, so getting a font from google fonts these days doesn't really mean its limited in glyphs, weights, quality, whatever
Eli Heuer?
I dig velvetyne, who are french, and then this italian foundry, (TK), and the League of Moveable Type...
- [Open Font Library](https://fontlibrary.org/) - [Google Fonts](https://fonts.google.com/) - [Beautiful Web Type](https://beautifulwebtype.com/) - [KB Libre Type Are.na Channel](https://www.are.na/kristian-bjornard/libretype) - [A Repository on GitHub you can just fork and/or download](https://github.com/opensourcedesign/fonts) - [UseModify](https://usemodify.com/) - [Velvetyne](https://www.velvetyne.fr/) - [The League of Moveable Type](https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/) - [Badass Libre Fonts by Womxn](https://www.design-research.be/by-womxn/)
A cool aspect of these fonts then is also you can not only get the fonts to use on your machine(s), share them with your clients and printers and friends and colleagues witout worry... you can also for the most part find and download the acutal source files used to to make th fonts. Does the F/LOS typeface you like not have a certain character or weight? well download the UFOs and edit it! Do you want to make a custom typeface for a client as part of their identity? find the thing closest to your vision from the F/LOS world and tweak it!
The universe of F/LOS fonts can sometimes feel limited... and can sometimes feel less-than in terms of quality. I would say that in general, while you might not end up with as many typographic nicities; real small caps, different styles of numbers, etc. this isn't always the case. Many of these F/LOS fonts are designed to serve populations, users, audiences, etc. historically not served. SIL for example, an organization who has done a lot for Libre Fonts (<https://software.sil.org/fonts/>) has many fonts with huge character sets so they could set their materials in as many languages as possible (they provide language tools to all manner of commnunites)...
Often over time F/LOS fonts evolve to have more features just like software, etc. Raleway for exmaple was launched w/ one thin weight by TLOMT (<https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/raleway>); but was forked and the incarnation that lives on google fonts has 9 weights, and italics, and even an extra display version, raleway dots. <https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Raleway?query=raleway#standard-styles> & <https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Raleway+Dots?query=raleway>
Font management is both easy and terrible with F/LOS offerings and on Linux in general. As far as applications for font management go, there's not a lot, and the one good-ish one upkept by a designery person is no longer maintained... So you're stuck manually putting things in the right places. The good part of that is that, well, using MacOS depending on what you're useing you can just use whatever font manager you're already using... Some of the F/LOS tools however, they just don't know to look for fonts anywhere except the main system folder... This is hard to add/delete fonts from if you're a regular computer user... but in Linux, there is pretty much only the sytem repo for fonts, so thus the bias/seemingly annoying "feature" (or "bug" depending on your view)
Programs!? How do you start switching your tools and programs and software!!??
Your images and your typefaces are now liberated. Not its time for all your software. This is the biggest leap; the largest jump; the hardest mental chasm to bridge so far. For somethings its a no brainer; for others its a nightmare. Let's try to navigate a small amount of this more complicated territory. Think of this as a partial; an incoplete map; of a terrain...
Now, today is a good day to try and find and use some of this stuff – there have never been so many easy to install and decent to use graphics tools. For the most part, most of this stuff now has mac/windows installers now – this was a big problem in the past; running a program in an emulator or virtual machine; having to download/install from the command line...
You could start with programs that only exist as F/LOS – things like Drawbot, OBS, Nodebox, Processing – there aren't adobe nor native mac programs that really do these generative design things, or are rad for video streaming/screen recording...
Once you start building up your library of F/LOS tools, to do cool things you wouldn't be able to do otherwise, you can graduate to starting to replace some of your proproietary software...
An incomplete list of all the libre graphics software you might want to try.
- [Blender](https://www.blender.org/) - [GNU Image Manipulation Program](https://www.gimp.org/downloads/) - [Darktable](http://www.darktable.org/) - [Inkscape](https://inkscape.org/) - [Krita](https://krita.org/en/) - [Nodebox](https://www.nodebox.net/) - [Scribus](https://www.scribus.net/) - [Drawbot](https://www.drawbot.com/content/download.html) - [Processing](https://processing.org/) - [ImageMagick](https://imagemagick.org/) - [GhostScript](https://www.ghostscript.com/) - [FontForge](https://fontforge.org/en-US/) - [Birdfont](https://birdfont.org/) - [OBS](https://obsproject.com/) - [Jitsi Meet](https://meet.jit.si/) - [LibreOffice](https://www.libreoffice.org/) - [VSCode](https://code.visualstudio.com/) - [Olive Video Editor](https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/) - [LibreCad](https://librecad.org/) - [Audacity](https://www.audacityteam.org) - [Ardour](https://ardour.org/) - [VLC](https://www.videolan.org/vlc/) - and so much more...
There are things like ImageMagick and GhostScript that are basically background applications – you can run them from the terminal and other programs actually rely on them to do key things. Imagemagick lets you manipulate images, pdfs, etc. from the command line... (here, let me turn this PDF into a folder of jpgs) Ghostscript is a terminal based PDF creating/editing tool!?
The key to all of this is to properly mentally frame this for yourself. Try to think of everything I show you or talk about today not as direct replacements for your regular processes or tools; but as reasonable alternatives – they might do things differently; but you'll be able to end up at the same final result: well designed graphic objects...
If you've gotten this far, you might start to think about file formats – how can i still share or fix things if I for some reason don't have access to what I need?? file formats are way more universal; standard in the F/LOS world.
For example, .SVG is a standard, open file format for web AND print. Illustrator can also read it. So can Sketch. So can Figma. SVG is really an XML document, so you can even read/edit SVGs with textedit or whatever coding IDE you like.
This is true across the F/LOS ecosystem. Usually, whatever file formats are used are open; or if not, then they try to be some sort of plaintext (XML or other sort of text doc) to try and make readability even without the right tool, possible... Scribus documents are also really just XMl files, look you can see more or less what's happening here in VSCode; and I can even edit the file here, save it, and when I reopen it in Scribus my document will have a new page. Here's what happens when you try to open an illustrator file in VSCode...
So you think you want to try GNU/Linux?
If you have been able to ditch Adobe; if you see all this and say, hell yes, liberate me from my technocratic overlords; then you can probably try ditching Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. You should give GNU/Linux a try.
- [Debian](https://www.debian.org/) - [Ubuntu](https://ubuntu.com/) - [PopOS](https://pop.system76.com/) - [Manjaro](https://manjaro.org/) - [OpenSUSE](https://www.opensuse.org/) - [RedHat/Fedora](https://getfedora.org/) - [EasyOS](https://easyos.org/) - GNU/Linux Distributions
And then besides figuring out what distro works for you there is the ecosystem of front ends too!
- [GNOME](https://www.gnome.org/) - [XFCE](https://xfce.org/) - [i3wm](https://i3wm.org/) - [There are so many desktop environments for GNU/Linux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_environment#Examples_of_desktop_environments)
This starts to make way more sense even then designing software – the way your computer looks, works, etc. – shouldn't a designer weild some control over how a tool works? how their main "studio" is setup – how it acts, behaves, interfaces??? You can actually desing your interfaces; design your own icons; pick whatever typefaces you want to display wherever you want – It's way more of a design dream!
Most of the GNU/Linux OS world is meant to run on MANY kinds of computers; from tiny internet of things chipsets to big mainframes and everything in between. That means that its a lot easier to get a basic install of GNU/Linux running on whatever you have laying around than MacOS or Windows... You also have sizeable control over what GUI you use; os you can preserve resources for running software or rendering 4D graphics over giving all your finder windows dropshadows and animated effects.
An advantage of all this is that you might et more life out of an old machine; you might get more life out of an underpowered machine...
You should be able to fix your computer if it breaks; you should be able to customize your computers if you desire; increasingly this is getting impossible – it was already hard with Apples, but now most manufacturers are heading this route, especially for laptops. Using older or more liberated computer workstations means you have many more options for customization;
I mean if you want to be hardcore...
- Old windows laptops: The more standard the better for old hardware; GNU/linux tech entusiasts really like the thinkpad line of computers (<https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Lenovo+Thinkpad&_sacat=177&rt=nc&Storage%2520Type=SSD%2520%2528Solid%2520State%2520Drive%2529&_dcat=177>) - Generally Apples, particularly the newer couple of varieties, are making harder and harder to use options. There is so much proprietary stuff on them; the trackpads are hard to talk to for most linux kernels; the newest models with the A2 security chips are nearly impossible to utilize with linux... - Libre companies:
- [System76](https://system76.com/) - [Purism](https://puri.sm/) - [KDE SLimbook](https://kde.slimbook.es/) <- KDE makes a desktop environment as well! - [Tuxedo](https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/) - [Pinebook](https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/) - [Raspberry Pi](https://www.raspberrypi.org/) - [PiTop](https://www.pi-top.com/products/pi-top-3)
You can also look on FSF.org they link directly to fully liberated computer sellers.
So, you've changed image sources; you've changed fonts; you liberated your tools and your computer and OS... how to liberate your works?
As you start down this path you will find and see so many more opportunities... (like jitsi meet instead of zoom)
Now, your software, and maybe even your hardware, are liberated. You can use images, fonts, and programs that may be bent to your whims and will and flight of fancy. Great. How do you do something with them now that embraces all the same ideals as a process for producing work and future works?
How can you make your making liberated too?
How to apply F/LOS to designing?
- If we are open and share our designs, whatever, it is easier as a novice to learn how something is done; you can partake in freedom 1 – studying, etc. - Can we adapt to changes or different workflows more easily and quickly? - More collisions of ideas? - iterate design solutions instead of creating new ones all the time? - it's fun?
To help share more; to make it clear
If designers participate this way what does it look like? Garth Braithwaite: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djf8sLjtbzU>
1. Share your process just be more open about what you are doing (if you are able!?). Share what you are going through, success and failures – maybe it is more important to share your failures frankly. Mention who inspired you or that you built off of. Be more transparent about who your mentors, inspirations, etc. were. This builds community; shows the interconnected nature of work and ideas.
2. Share your Source Files If you can, share your files. I mean it is even better if you could always write a tutorial or documentation; but just sharing your files with libre licensing allows others to learn from how you've made things by just opening them up and poking around.
3. Whenver possible use text-editable Code (XML, HTML, JS, Python, plaintext, MD, Whatever) It is the easiest thing to work with on any system with any tools one desires. It is also easiest to version control. AND if you are designing for the web and you try to design with HTML/CSS you can easily preview it on the real systems that you're designing for.
4. Collaborate. Design is frequently not a "hey lets get together and make some stuff" discipline. Its often about being a singular design visionary; a design hero; and this is partially the fault of design history...
5. Donate!? If you make something things that don't end up being needed for a project, can you just donate them to the public domain? or with a CC license that allows sharing and remixing?
6. Contribute Can you design for the community in some way? how can you offer design skills back to other open projects? if you like a libre font, can you make sure to contribute design work you've made with it as examples for the type designers? build a webpage for an open project that needs a website? mockup alternative interface ideas for a tool? share tempaltes for Scribus? or Inkscape? Just submit issues, or go through issues related to design stuff and then try to answer other people's questions?
- Won't get credit - Pride - Unreasonable Greed. I don't want to give this away cause it might make me money! - don't want to be judged for how the sausage is made - file formats - tooling - fear of "design by committee" - lack of desire
Its not just that designers CAN open source; but the benefits are so good; we're foolish not to be more open. And there are some designers trying out these methods... but as an industry we're still just really tied to.
In general; this stuff isn't easy. It's hard to just set out and do all of this – even the imagery and fonts stuff because there is expectation that designer's use certain type from certain places; you might be asked specifically to go to certian photographers or certain stock photo sites or be given aready unfree things to work with. Choosing to abandon adobe and apple... well, you probably can't do that if you have any sort of normal design job... ????
In general; the main thing keeping us from this is the desire of the status quo not to change. Neoliberalism works best when we all do what it wants. "free markets" not "free software".
The goal of this isn't actually full F/LOS adoption. I mean, my libre designer character I like to play, that's their goal; but in my own actual work, it isn't always possible to abandon everything every one else is using and doing. Clients will need you sometimes to make a book in InDesign; you might need to work in AfterEffects to work on your team... Instead of taking the extreme view, think of this really as a way to do more; to have more tools; to have more ways of doing things; to be able to make every more formal experiments; to better tie formal choices
How might this help you remove bias? what other kinds of interfaces might you now see and experience? What other kinds of interfaces and systems and opinions will you run into???
Designers are supposed to be designing fabulous interfaces. But! almost all of us use the same software on the same computers and so have an incredibly limited range of ideas for what makes an interface; for what makes a good interface; for what makes an accesible interfaces...
Think about this: the way desktop publising works on a computer, it was designed by a handful of people in the 80s, specifically to be done on a tiny mac at the time...you know like 8 key people decided a direction and a bunch of semiotic symbols for how to do things, for what features and icons and whatever else exist in these places... How much has changed since then? how much the same are these programs and ecosystems? Can steve jobs, Warnock, and (Page maker dude)'s ideas and decisions they made leading up to 1984 still be the right ones in the present we find ourselves in? Maybe some of these other tools grasp that ???
There are tools here that don't exist on a mac or windows machine; that's rad!
Other Resources:
- What is Open Source Explained in Lego: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8fHgx9mE5U&list=TLPQMjMwNzIwMjDvdkWAxlxtzw&index=2> - Garth Braithwaite; Designers CAN Open Source: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djf8sLjtbzU> - [Github Open Source Guides](https://opensource.guide/) <- FYI: the imagery for each "card" is an SVG and marked as open source; they're part of the guide repos; you can take the illustrations and use them for something else!
I should flesh this out heavily!!?
The first order of design is communication with symbols and images.
The second order of design is design of artefacts as in engineering, architecture, and mass production.
In the middle of the 20th century we realised that we can also design activities and processes. We work progressively more with these activities and services. That’s the third order of design. In the beginning we called it Human Computer Interaction. Now we work with any kind of interaction – it’s about how people relate to other people. We can design those relationships or the things that support them. It’s this interaction I’m after.
The fourth order of design is the design of the environments and systems within which all the other orders of design exist. Understanding how these systems work, what core ideas hold them together, what ideas and values – that’s a fourth order problem. Both the third and the fourth order are emerging now very strongly.
Some designers have the ability to deal with these very complex questions that lie at the core of our social life. Not every designer, but some have the ability to grasp the ideas and the values at the core of very complicated systems. Those are fourth order designers.

BauHaus Grafik (Special Catalogue)
Exhibition of International Graphics from the BauHaus Print Workshop
© Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart 1968
(on loose sheet stuck into PG. 36)
initially espoused the Building «» guild «» craftsman concept which then lead to "art & technology as the new unity" (col1 pg36 ¶1 L9 – L14)
somehow I think this leads us in the present to...
Everything Is Connected (but what is the tagline to engage people with?)
Sustainability? restorative practice? ethics?
(on loose sheet stuck into PG. 36)
(on loose sheet stuck into PG. 36)
The only completely new and most important element of today's design is form (bauhaus 1926)
reframe this through the lens of sustainability? restorative practice? drawing down carbon?
(on loose sheet stuck into PG. 36)
If art is for arousing emotion, what is design for? the same?
(on loose sheet stuck into PG. 36)
So, we can tell what a modernist design is...
but what is a
(on loose sheet stuck into PG. 36 50 Years BauHaus)
Paul Klee, 1921:
on the whole there is nothing wrong and nothing right, it simply lives and materializes through the interplay of forces
youth must get away from the rigid atmosphere of “either-or” and must move into the flexible, vital atmosphere of the “end”
(pg36 col3 ¶2 L4 – L7)
(on loose sheet stuck into PG. 56–57, 50 Years BauHaus)
Where to find out more about "NATUR KUNST MAN" (Nature, Art, Man) Schlemer's BauHaus stuff
Curriculum for the course "Man" > nature art man presentation, 1928
(on loose sheet stuck into PG. 56–57, 50 Years BauHaus)
This idea of a gradient of forms?
Absolute form «» a formal way «» a synthetic formal style «» imitation «» natural truth
(on loose sheet stuck into PG. 75, 50 Years BauHaus)
(on loose sheet stuck into PG. 75, 50 Years BauHaus)
Combine the functions of an art academy and a school for the applied arts » then, also include social and environmental aims »
we get to:
Combine the functions of an art academy with a science lab, a farmyard, an anthropology seminar, and with business acumen...
The very spread of the word "design" from daily objects to cities and ecosystems, is taken here as a symptom of an interesting switch in the theory of action that has been typical of modernism. The paper review five connotations of the verb “to design » and analyze them as an alternative to the notion of "construction" and "fabrication". It then presents the work of Peter Sloterdijk has a crucial contribution to the philosophy of design. It shows especially how Sloterdijk’ notion of explicitation allows to reconsider materiality (a materiality to which design has always been sensitive) but freed from naturalization as well as from the balancing act between form and function. Finally, it offers a challenge to the design theorists for inventing the tools that could allow this philosophy of design to “draw together » matters of concern.
A child learning to walk doesn't really care about learning to walk... We get it when we're initially learning that we just try stuff and eventually, usually rather quickly, we figure stuff out.
How to keep this focus on the process? Invest in the Process
Designers Taking Climate Action
How can we make a book that has a negative carbon footprint? Carbon Negative Paper? ala Eric Benson's Fresh Press
Carbon negative ink? Ink that absorbs CO2 over time and thus becomes readable AFTER it has stored a certain amount of carbon!?
Two friends discussing how designers might better use open source tools and participate in open source communities amongst other things. Things quickly overlap with sustainability and general visual ideas … This exchange happened over email between 2015–04–09 and 2015–05–27. The actual email that started the whole thread is missing (or maybe it was actually an in person conversation and this was a response to it …), this picks up right afterward. It has been edited for grammar, spelling, and some tangential content has been removed. Most of it is basically the direct exchange… Additional thoughts have in a few instances been added to help flesh out the ideas more fully, mostly as footnotes.
- Kristian Bjørnard (KB) / Karen Shea (KS)
A design commons would be a well managed set of resources. A complex combination of culture, economy, systems. This is not design wealth free for the taking?
A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist
"Designers occupy a dialectical space between the world that is and the world that could be" - Victor Margolin.
What is a dialectic?
Fast forward from Green Acres. Sue Spaid, now living in Belgium, has a new exhibition: Ecovention Europe, ecologically inventive artists working in Europe, and there is another book.
In the interim since Green Acres, I heard designer Sara de Bondt discuss the Radical Nature catalog designed for the Barbican in London. De Bondt's studio wrote a sustainable printing manifesto as part of the research for the catalog's production.
De Bondt's "manifesto" reminded me about constraints for framing design decisions: How might I re-examine the design choices of _Green Acres_ through new constraints? Could I improve the sustainability (and the sustainable aesthetics) for _Ecovention Europe_?
One of the items in De Bondt's printing manifesto is "use less ink." This meant selecting colors more carefully. The palette of _Ecovention Europe_ uses no color that adds up to more that 100% ink coverage. (_Ecovention Europe_ uses CMYK: and color palette swatches start at 100% pure C, M, Y, or K, and then are mixed in equal percentages to keep 100% or less total coverage: 50% + 50%; 33% + 33% + 33%; etc.). This resulted in a color palette that was fairly special for this book. Reducing ink also led to a graphic solution, bitmapped city aerial photos as the decorative section markers. The appearance of a filled area is kept, but less ink is used comparatively.
Text columns in _Green Acres_ ended at full paragraphs breaks to make editing easier. This gave a formally-nice rhythm to text columns, but it was an inefficient use of space. With _Ecovention Europe_, I reduced this space by running all the text the full column heights. This had the secondary benefit of minimizing superfluous decoration: In _Green Acres_, superficial decorative elements filled those blanks left by text columns ending mid-page.
I even tried to reduce decision making through reuse. The grid for _Green Acres_ had a lot of conceptual reasoning invested into it, and so I reused the page templates, type choices, grid setup, etc.
As a conceptual exercise, this was great. But, did it make much of a difference? How could this be done differently and improved upon again next time? Is there an alternative to making this book at all? (Should this exist? I didn’t ask that question before we began!)
A good teacher has sound knowledge of the courses they teach. A good teacher maintains up-to-date information about their course’s subjects (as well as subjects related to course contents — this can be difficult, see you can’t know everything). A good teacher provides historical context for material in a course. A good teacher provides contemporary context for material in a course. A good teacher facilitates discussion and understanding between students (and sometimes facilitates intellectual conflict). A good teacher must promote conceptual reasoning (abstraction and reflection used to solve a design problem) and help students become analytical thinkers (good at separating a complex design problem into its constituent smaller parts).
Oh! can I show this as the book covers and link them to their tiddler? or even to some sort of online store or their worldcat entry? like http://www.thesustainabilitist.com/library/
various things tagged NDC00 and otherwise.
New Design Commons, New Design Commons (020220904), New Design Commons (Too Much Content)
A New Design Commons (0202209252330)
There is not much new in this talk, but I hop to have remixed it enough that it sounds intriguing …
I am worried about the current state of affairs of design teaching and design tools.
If we want to save ourselves from the climate crisis, we need design disciplines that can rapidly come up with implementable solutions, properly reuse existing old solutions, innovate new solutions where appropriate, and rapidly distribute all solutions in reusable,remixable, and repurposeable forms as quickly as possible. Our current state of intellectual copyright isn't conducive to this. The mythology of newness and the individual design genius (though thankfully changing) isn't conducive to this...
So what is this then?
I am worried that my tools can be turned off (Adobe/Venezuela) I am concerned that any new tools I enjoy might be gobbled up (Adobe/Figma) I am troubled that the makers of my tools care about nothing but money (adobe/rings of power) PS, AI, ID splash screens all carry subtle ads for RoP > you could also download specialty templates, effects, etc. to do RoP style designs of your own > this is weird CAPITALIST commons > we want you to share and remix these things so that it makes it more likely people will pay for adobe stuff and Amazon prime video stuff moving forward!?
Intellectual Enclosure
I don't want to talk about software; I don't want to talk about licenses. I want to talk about cultural resources that should and can belong to all of us. Though, I'm worried this can go away too!? (Unsplash/Getty) To protect cultural resources for reuse, we need an updated set of customs, rules, and behaviors for sharing our work.
The commons, int eh context of this talk, regress to the idea of a shared set of resources that are upkeep by a community.
One of the more commonly cited documents for one's right to the commons in the Magna Cart
quote that here? bring up the "local use" clause?
Mr. Keedy writes about a "Global Style" an affected modernism that now adorns all sorts of (in particular cultural) institutions around the globe. I don't desire this sameness. I don't think a commons should inspire sameness. A functioning, healthy commons has no single style or set of solutions.... IS this sameness because we all share the same tools? Is this intellectual enclosure? Is this the stylistic colonization of our tecno-social overlords? I mean, if Silicon Valley is all about softened corporate modernism... and then their tools are built based on that aesthetic assumption... and then we are told to use their tools to make new stuff... the systems for designing USING capitalist modernism are baked into everything... so we have no way to make EXCEPT within that framework
So where do you go that is outside that!?
The commons. The web. The F/LOSS community (sometimes)
Critical Design > D&R references again Speculative Design?
A commons to me is a place where yes, ideas may spread across cultures, across socio-economic/political divides, sometimes this may reach near-appropriation terms... But! The point is necessity, quality, Loe, new metaphor, doing something new, reviving something old but great, expanding knowledge, reconnecting with forgotten knowledge...
Everything is a Remix by Kirby Fergesun Copy Transform Combine
Lessig Doctorow Stallman Raymond Knuth Dunne + Raby Braithwaite Crossland Elinor Ostrom (Need non-white and non-male refs) ???
Open license Open file format Open tools Open forum Open access
The 4 freedoms from GNU, but better written for cultural content/production?
Collaborate More Share More Do More Repeat More purposefully...
Professors and students ... we can share and dig more, learn from each other, build on the shoulders of each other (of giants!?)
Don't want to lose the trail of authorship. On the contrary, I would hope that this would make it more likely and easier that the trails of where ideas came from can be highlighted. The lineage doesn't need to be secret — if you've properly accredited your remixing, then the old myths can die... the old lies can stop...
This talk, the words are all in a text files you can grab, it is CC-SA-4... the slides are from pent, so you can fork it and edit it there, but they are also PDFs and can just be taken in that form... Share-Alike: you can use this however you want as long as you reference me, and then also share whatever you do with it the same way!
KEEP SHARING
Stop phordering your content, your old designs, your good but unused designs... just let them out in the world. It doesn't have to be cheap, or dirty or whatever... but just give something way... how do you give the thin you designed away but still he paid???
Are you really concerns with someone taking your syllabi or projects? What if you just Share-Alike them!? Don't keep them enclosed!?
An informal intellectual commons: the vernacular. Stewart Brand, the whole earth catalog, hippie modernists.. a better world through sharing.
Vernacular: How Buildings Learn describes the same process for buildings as is in use for things like RedHat linux or other open source software. Many eyes make light work. Rapid iteration and prototyping and error finding and fixing. The right person to find the problems and the right person to solve the problems aren't usually the same people, how do we connect them together? How does this work in the classroom or in the world at large for problems beyond software.
Stewart brand again > how buildings learn
Progressive education Version control Utopia is no place The commons is some place
Open tools and open culture
Dunne and raby against the status quo
If the status quo is a proprietary set of tools and illectual enclosure, the to design alternatives to that we need some critical praxis: how do we use liberated tools and resources from the world of FREE CULTURE instead.
What is free culture? How does this lean to a new design commons!?
The old powers resist... Established power hates change.
I’ve been busy lately, really busy, and half-gallons and gallons of Milk no longer seem to empty themselves in our refrigerator before their expiration. The problem was exacerbated by it now being summer, when drinking a frothy glass of milk just hasn’t seemed quite right. So, to try and keep spoilage to a minimum I switched to buying Quarts of milk instead.
Until a year or two ago I used to consume so much milk — in pancakes, cereal, hot chocolate, coffee + tea, etc. — that it always seemed foolish to buy milk in such small containers. Not so anymore. I’ve found the quart to be an under-appreciated container size in the contemporary United Statesizen liquid world. The quart of milk is truly the perfect sized container (especially when in the glass, returnable variety). It actually fits in your hand. A child can easily lift it. Pouring is a breeze. No more spilt milk!
Like so many other things, something that initially seems to be merely a choice about quantity ends up revealing something about the design of our environment. The milk-man’s glass quart is an everyday object that achieved near design perfection, yet has been basically forgotten by our culture …
This idea fits into Jasper Morrison's idea of “Super Normal”
I had never given the quart a chance before, but now I must have my milk *only* in quarts. Besides the better relation to my hand, it also makes it much easier to have a variety of different milks (I like the fattier stuff, while most of my acquaintances prefer a skimmer choice) in the fridge without fear of spoiling. Lastly, when done, I take the glass quart back to my milk guy (and yes, I do have a milk guy) where it is refilled. Awesome.
I like to say that I am a "Sustainabilitist" — that is, one interested in creating sustainability, one interested in working towards the sustainable!
Sustainabilitists take over where environmentalism ends, moving from the realm of the environment into all realms. We must allow our designs, strategies and methodologies to evolve and adapt to new ideas, new hybrids — accept and deal with a constant flux between nature, society, economy — everything.
In my twenty year role as graphic designer I've designed books, record sleeves, magazines, logos, websites, exhibition graphics, and built digital tools. Regardless of final forms, or if its client-based or self-initiated, I treat all design projects as opportunities for intellectual inquiry and self-expression.
I'm going to walk us through a few case-studies dealing with sustainability and its principles: constraint, aesthetics, vernacular, reuse, interconnection … and more broadly today I'll discuss "what Sustainable Aesthetics might look like." …
_The Sustainabilitist Principles_ is a modular manifesto; a collection of my ideals for designing as a Sustainabilitist; the ways of thinking to create sustainably as considered in 2009. The goal was to create an object whose form directly embodied the principles it conveyed, while also disseminating them. It was a poster, that happened to also be a sculpture, and a novel concept.
_The Sustainabilitist Principles_ visualizes two important concepts:
1. Sustainable Design does not exist. 2. Everything is Connected.
We'll get back to this in a sec, but first a detour…
It's normal to talk about constructivists, modernists, conceptual minimalists, etc.; and know these as novel visual styles for their time and space. Visuals from these movements came from different ways of thinking. Modernism (for instance) was not about style for style’s sake, but style illuminating a novel theoretical position; style that was arrived at from a thought process, from a set of values, or from hypothesizing and experimenting.
If "sustainability" requires different ways of thinking (some new, & returning to old ways!?), shouldn’t it carry with it some kind of new style (and/or reuse old ones!?)? We need a new new (or a new old new; or a remixed old???). Shouldn't there be something different aesthetically about sustainability? Designing for the welfare of all life is certainly a different mindset from designing for the corporate marketplace... do these things need to then look different?
Back to my overarching question: “What does sustainable graphic design look like?" For me, this inspired a whole body of work; anything I made should/could be analyzed through this lens – does this look like sustainable graphic design?
I have seen a few recurring “answers” in my work and work from the field:
1. SGD looks the same. 2. SGD looks eco-friendly. 3. SGD looks innovative. 4. SGD does not exist. - A Pessimistic interpretation? - An Optimistic interpretation?
((Click through lots of examples of my work as I say these things))
"Sustainable design does not exist" was first a pessimistic "fourth way." Is design all just trash? does design create waste period, so nothing is sustainable? Or, literally, sustainable design is not a thing: anything you are making is unmaking so much else.
((Victor Papanek there are some disciplines more dangerous? slide))
But! "Sustainable design does not exist" came to signify an alternative vector; it didn't exist because it was ephemeral! because it reused existing objects in a new way! that it left no trace! suddenly this felt like a prompt for new works; new questions! A useful constraint going forward.
((Future cone!?)) ((Instead of problem solving, why not problem finding))
_The Sustainabilitist Principles_, visualizes two important concepts for this talk:
1. Sustainable Design does not exist. 2. Everything is Connected.
_The Sustainabilitist Principles_ was the real example I've made of a design "not existing."
_The Sustainabilitist Principles_ started out as me looking at the books on my desk, wondering where "sustainable" design lies within them… my trying to map connections between all these texts… my trying to write about and illustrate these principles I was garnering; the interconnections over time and space of similar ideals…
The final, resulting piece _was_ the actual books from my actual bookshelf. I hadn't needed to make a book to explain these principles; it was doable with the objects themselves! Bring the right parts together in the gallery, and then *poof* everything goes back to its raw materials when the exhibition was over. Design that does not exist (beyond its necessity).
The books were my books. The screen printed definitions, they were printed on title pages and front matter of found paperback novels. The novels went back to the free book exchange where they were found afterward. Even the shape of the "graphic" was meant to use the embroidery floss interconnecting things in the longest possible pieces to maximize reuse of the thread afterward.
_The Sustainabilitist Principles_ visualized what I had been reading, what I had been thinking. It connected content from different decades, from different disciplines. _The Sustainabilitist Principles_ showed you where you could look for more. It simplified and condensed a lot of disparate material into a clearer, more accessible format.
Connecting dots, connecting areas of thought, letting a newcomer get further faster!
Ideas never come from one place; time and space and location are all intertwingled and different thinkers and makers in arrive at similar processes and useful principles through different paths.
So the content is interconnected; but also the form! The way _The Sustainabilitist Principles_ ended up visually is a form of connection too.
((Show _The Greenest Green_))
_The Sustainabilitist Principles_ is the closest thing I've made to pure “sustainable graphic design.” And, the principles I outlined within have influenced all the work I've produced since...
Now, Let's see how else everything is connected: where these principles show up in more recent works!
_Green Acres_ ended up being an example of "SGD looks the same."
I was doing a variety of work with The Contemporary, an art museum in Baltimore …
(show a lot of things??????))
… and the director, Sue Spaid, had an exhibition planned, with Artists using farming as their main form of practice and expression: _Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses, and Abandoned Lots_. We designed a book for the exhibition.
I had a goal to make the book "sustainable." These were mainly sustainability focused artists, how could I better represent ecological inventiveness in the printed design? In the end the only thing that made the production of this book "sustainable" was that it was printed on demand, and printed using recycled, unbleached paper.
Visually, the book was meant to critique commercial farming — juxtaposing more artistic graphics over an extremely constrained grid based on aerial photography of commercial farmland. The book intends to say something different, but generally conforms to common standards of "good" modernist layout. Other than a minor production method improvement, it's the same … !
There was a glimmer of something else though: Reuse of a format! (or maybe "constraint" or "systems" from _The Sustainabilitist Principles_ ???). Sue had worked on an exhibition 10 years earlier called _Ecovention_. That book was an 8x8 square. So we made _Green Acres_ an 8x8 square to match as a collection.
A couple of years later, Sue Spaid, now living in Belgium, gets a new exhibition opportunity. She calls it _Ecovention Europe_ — ecologically inventive artists specifically working in Europe — and there was to be another catalog.
In the interim since _Green Acres_, I saw a lecture by the designer Sara De Bondt, where Sara discusses the _Radical Nature_ catalog her team designed for the Barbican in London. De Bondt's studio wrote a sustainable printing manifesto as part of the research for the catalog's production.
((show manifesto???))
De Bondt's "manifesto" got me thinking about what other ways design decisions could be made, how could I embrace some of my old ideas from say, _The Sustainabilitist Principles_?
Re-examine the design choices of _Green Acres_ For _Ecovention Europe_ …
How might I make yet another 8x8 book, and drastically improve the sustainability (or at least the sustainable aesthetics) this time around? How could we re-approach the design of _Green Acres_, repurposing what we had done already?
At this time I happened to be working on a project with a class around the 3Rs as design prompts (reduce, reuse, recycle). For _Ecovention Europe_ I decided to "Reduce" and "Reuse" my efforts on _Green Acres_.
So …
One of the items in De Bondt's printing manifesto is use less ink. The idea of "Using less ink" meant selecting colors more carefully and to use them more sparingly.
No color adds up to more that 100% ink coverage. (_Ecovention Europe_ uses CMYK: and color palette swatches start at 100% pure C, M, Y, or K, and then are mixed in equal percentages to keep 100% or less total coverage: 50% + 50%; 33% + 33% + 33%; etc.).
Another way I tried to reduce ink was bitmapped city maps as the decorative new section markers. The appearance of a filled area is kept (relating back to a _Green Acres_ design choice), but much less ink is used as compared to a filled and full bleed grayscale or CMYK variant.
Text columns in Green Acres ended where a full paragraph ended to make a few things easier from a design perspective. Yes, this gave a ragged, formally-nice rhythm to text columns, but it was an inefficient use of space. With _Ecovention Europe_, I spent time reducing the amount of unused space (this also minimized superfluous decoration — In _Green Acres_, superficial decorative elements that looked nice but served no functional purpose were all blank page areas.
The grid for _Green Acres_ had a lot of conceptual reasoning invested into it, and so I reused the page templates, type choices, grid setup, etc.
Sustainable designers routinely find novel ways to reuse materials, but I felt that there was little discussion for the possibility of reusing visuals and solutions.
Printing on demand was a concept also reused.
As a conceptual exercise, this was good. But, did it actually make much of a difference? In a book like this, there are a lot of images, and the artworks didn’t adhere to the same ink coverage rules.
How could this be done differently and improved upon again next time? Would a different typeface save ink and space? Are there other ways to handle image inclusion? Is there an alternative to making this book at all? (Should this exist? I didn’t ask that question before we began!).
- _Ecovention Europe_ is maybe in the "the same" category, but is it moving into the "innovative" or "doesn't exist" category? - Where else does everything is connected fit in?
Idea: A book printed in an ink that acts as a carbon sink — the book's text only shows up gradually; it has to absorb the carbon to become black!!??
how does graphic designing remove carbon? can a book recycle plastic? what logo captures the most carbon? what typeface uses the least energy and/or ink? what aesthetic is the most decolonizing? whose bias am I perpetuating? does designing matter? is building a wetland better than building a website? is using solar power better than writing all this shit down?
1. paper. Some alternative fiber paper; 50% recycled content; 50% permaculture grown prairie grass fiber or something? reusing waste and practicing regenerative agriculture. 2. Ink. This is the real special sauce. How can something be printed clear; then the composition of the ink absorbs carbon dioxide out of the air, stores the carbon, and slowly darkens to carbon black over time!?!?!?! Oh, and is this compostable at the end of its life as well? 3. Cover. Again, cover needs to be compostable, recycled + permaculture fibers, and perhaps the type/image on the cover is just blind de-bossed? 4. Binding. Perfect bind? use some sort of compostable glue? What else would need to be figured out?
The climate is changing. What does that mean. Social climates, ecological climates, both. How are climate and weather related? how does graphic design show or make this all more understandable? is focusing on climate change even important? is it too big? too abstract? What's the perspective of Drawdown.org on that idea? How does Climate Designers fit into all of this? What framework or ideology should lead? What about AirMiners? as a community do they have any stronger organizing principle or concepts other than just "get carbon out of the atmosphere and into other sinks?" What is the minimum you need to learn to understand this? to have enough people grok this to actually change some behaviors? to change some social and cultural structures? What does a climate friendly museum look like? what does a climate friendly school look like?
Should this whole thing be signs signaling sustainability > the libre actions are one aspect of this? reuse is one aspect of this? This is the unifying feature; all these things can be shown to do something from my "Sustainabilitist Principles" project from grad school???
I like to call designs like this "Signs signaling Sustainability." This is the real opportunity for Designers taking climate action — turning each design opportunity into a sign signaling sustainability. Make tangible, make understandable something about climate change. This is doable no matter the project; no matter the prompt.
So this sequestering book example focuses on "visualizing CO2". But, there are myriad other aspects of climate change and sustainability one might signal.
I am *drawn* to [Project DrawDown](https://www.DrawDown.org) as a framework for revealing opportunities for "signs signaling sustainability". Project DrawDown presents the most effective means for pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. Digging into all the "solutions" on Project DrawDown, the ways artists and designers might involve themselves is multitudinous. All kinds of work can be reframed as a "sign signaling sustainability" if you rethink the aims of a prompt so that it fits into an idea from Project DrawDown's table of solutions.
Take for instance Graham Coreil Allen's *Reverberation Crosswalks*. On the surface, these are fun, brightly colored crosswalks — paint on cement and asphalt; not particularly innovative in the "new materials" or "direct carbon capture." But! looking at Project DrawDown solutions, *walkable cities* is the 50th overall reduction solution. Suddenly *Reverberations Crosswalks* signals a sustainable vector forward. The neighborhood around this school is more walkable. You can't not notice the crosswalks, hopefully this makes you more likely to walk yourself. This concept is cheap; fast; easily replicated; can be customized for region, culture, available materials, etc.; AND can help make more people walk in the city. Bam! Climate Designed.
Distributed Solar Photovoltaics is also on Drawdown's list. And Low Tech Magazine's solar powered website signals how we might visualize energy usage; how we might enable new systems of powering our tools; questions if we really need constant connection; and how aesthetic choices correlate to physical resources even in the digital sphere.
The DC water mark project visualizes increased flooding and water level rise — where these impacts will be felt by you in this place! The water level rings articulates to us "oh shit, this place might be underwater pretty frequently given our current projected future!" Then maybe we can act accordingly and redirect our present towards a future where that is no longer true. Without *seeing* your house or office or favorite park area submerged, even symbolically, you cannot envision an alternative.
Copenhagen waste to energy plant is so clean it puffs just c02 and water vapor ... Captures 1 ton of C02, then exhausts it as a smoke ring. Help you visualize this otherwise intangible!?
Printing thing after thing on the scrap paper left over in the RISO studio…
What does SGD look like?
I am currently inclined to believe that there is no single way that sustainable graphic design looks, nor a single “correct” way that it is made (what materials it might be, or what processes it includes can be easily sorted into good, bad, ugly, less bad, etc. — but one golden solution does not exist).
A “correct” style may be irrelevant when it comes to what sustainable graphic design should look like.
What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “sustainable design?” Brown paper? Soy Ink? Bamboo? Reuse? Is there a particular aesthetic? Is there a particular kind of client? Is there a particular product? Is there a particular visual trope or look or feel? How about a particular message? A particular manufacturing process?
so what does sustainable graphic design look like? I'm still not completely sure, but I'm still working on it…
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Materials spoke too loudly, and everything looked “ReUsed” — some of the time in a negative way (purely from an aesthetic stand point). To the students, this proved problematic as
it occurs again and again in green and sustainable design projects: the work wears its heart too much on its sleeve; it looks too eco-friendly and unrefined.
This was not what they wanted for their work nor for Sustainability as a whole.
actively trying to avoid making work looking specifically ReUsed, energy-efficient, or “green.”
The work was meant to just be “good graphic design” — that it should look like other design, yet be more “good” in that it also embraced various aspects of Sustainability.
To find new visual themes for sustainable design to draw from.
The message revolved around variants of “include sustainable thinking more authentically in your life (and through your life, into your design practice).”
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I am a Graphic Designer, was working as such before graduate school, and have been generally approaching the concept of Sustainability through the lens of visual design. This lead to the question I posed myself which deals with both sustainability and design, "What does sustainable graphic design look like???"
I have moved towards a more theoretical philosophy of sustainability.
An underlying theme I have found in nearly every text and work I have read is this idea of a trinity mentality towards dealing with sustainability — The triple bottom line it is typically referred to. Different people use different terms, but true sustainability always comes down to answering Economic, Societal and Environmental needs together.
As a Venn diagram, sweet spots appear where sustainability in one realm overlaps sustainability in another. Each of these areas can be described as being sustainable in its own way, but only when each takes both the others into consideration will "true sustainability" be met. This is "sustainability in action"
This leads to this next diagram, more the philosophy of sustainability; the Mindset that gets you to the center sweet spot on the last diagram. The concept is that our economy is a construct of society, and cannot exist out side of it. likewise, we as humans, thus our society, would not exist without the greater concept of nature, and are contained within it. This creates a holistic view to move forward, once this concept is grasped, one sees that any decision made in one realm will effect the other two as well, so act accordingly! Any economic choice IS an environmental choice.
We are in a post-environmental world, and need to expand our thinking outside of any one realm into the others… These are the stepping stones towards my next set of "things."
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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle[^3R] – often referred to as the "3Rs" (Not to be confused with Reading, Writing, & Arithmetic) have been an important aspect of environmental stewardship since the seventies. Now that we find ourselves in a contemporary climate crisis, how can we use the 3 Rs as design strategies? How does "reduce, reuse. recycle" contribute to an evolving sustainabilitist design practice; not just personal actions in one's life.
To help frame and understand the 3Rs as a design aid, the concept of "waste = food" was employed. As a premise, "Waste = Food" has been most contemporaneously popularized through _Cradle to Cradle_.[^c2c] Michael Braungart and William McDonough want us to understand that our concept of waste is incorrect; we have a problematic relationship with waste. Nature produces no waste; outputs from one system are always inputs for another. Our current design and consumer cultures do not operate in this way. Karrie Jacobs points this out quite bluntly in her essay _Disposability, Graphic Design, Style, and Waste_: designers make garbage. Waste is just what we make – our inputs have only one output, trash! And trash must be sent away; not used for making more design. Maybe we can change that.
To internalize this students were given "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" as a set of design prompts. Reduce helps us with the waste side of our equation. Reuse and Recycle help our previous waste become new food. How can our creative waste from one design process become food for others? Reduction asks to think about different ways of minimizing. Reuse looks at how to use what we have to do more. Recycle questions the regular way of manufacture. How do we utilize our materials in manufacturing more items. How do we take finished products back to raw materials for new designs?
_Focus on strategies for reducing material and energy impacts._ Reduce means to minimize outputs, conserve inputs, utilize tact and strategy in the form, the content, and the quantities of objects.
Our "reduce" exercise asked students to choose a poster or other project and think about how to "reduce" it. This could mean reducing its size, its color palette, its amount of content, etc. And how can you do that reduction in granular steps. Show us how that reduction plays out. How far can you reduce? do you have to make things at all? What are the impediments to reducing?
- Reduce form. - Reduce content. - Reduce colors. - Reduce material. - Reduce energy. - Reduce choices. - Reduce size. - Reduce number of typefaces. - Reduce nodes on a vector path. - Reduce hierarchy. - Reduce [...]
Project prompt: Bring a poster you have already designed. The files for the poster are a useful starting place. Iterate through as many kinds of reduction as you can think of. Can you gradually reduce the size of the poster? How small can a poster get before it stops being a poster? Can you gradually reduce the ink coverage? How about the ink colors? Gradually reduce the information/content itself? Create a matrix of reduction to show all the different ways you can literally and figuratively reduce a design. Think about what opportunities this gives you moving forward on this project and in others in the future.
(Is minimalism the most "sustainable" aesthetic then?[^minimal])
_Strategies for making solutions last longer and finding other uses when finished._ Reuse is a normal process in many fields. As graphic designers however, its not the most common methodology. We chose to apply the idea of material reuse to poster designing. students were asked to bring in old prints and we would make new aphoristic posters with or old work. Reuse focuses on materials in their present state. Reuse is using stuff as it is but for a new purpose. Reuse should constitute less work and less energy than recycling. Reuse ≠ Recycling. What are the impediments to reuse? What can we reuse in design? How can reuse be made conceptually useful? We reuse code all the time in digital projects; why not more 2D formal and visual elements? its not uncommon to reuse typefaces but why not other symbols, pictures, layouts, etc.?
Reuse is an interesting idea for a graphic designer: If designer's do make so much waste, as Karrie Jacobs states; then there should always be plenty of physical ephemera to reuse. This also seems to me that it might allow for reduction – if we are making more by hand; certain limitations exist, at least in terms of what is easily reproducible; the quantity of available forms; etc.
Project prompt: Bring old prints and posters and mockups to class. Create an aphoristic poster that has a waste = food or other sustainability related message only made from the prints and posters we brought to class. We will literally reuse existing designs for this poster prompt. Make one poster during our time in class; make at least one more on your own outside of class.
_Reclaim as much residual value as possible, prevent virgin materials and ideas from being needlessly extracted and used._ The important idea of recycling is that you take a material and return it to its raw state. This is fundamentally different than reuse. It is about getting a material back to a raw state. How does one explore the "raw materials" of graphic design? how does one return a poster or similar to its raw materials? Students collected past projects – visuals, typefaces, etc. – and we shared them all with each other. We then made new aphoristic posters recycling each other's "raw materials." What are the raw materials of a design that can be reclaimed to make design anew? Type? Color? Image? Shape?
Return a manufactured, processed material back into a raw material. Recycling implies taking something back to an initial, raw, pure state and then creating fresh, new things from the "renewed" raw material. This can be high energy; high effort. When you can't reduce and you can't reuse then you recycle. It is meant to be a last resort. What are impediments to recycling? Can we make recycling conceptually useful?
Project prompt: Create a central, shared folder or repository. Everyone must contribute "waste" digital files left over from past projects to the shared folder. Analyze what's in the folder, and begin to think what the raw forms of the "materials" of our shared folder are – letterforms? color palettes? what? Create an aphoristic poster only made by recycling whatever you want from our shared dump of design "waste."
When you recite the three R's, they are in an intentional order – easiest to hardest; pre- to post-; low input to high input. Reduce should be the initial focus. In our waste = food equation; if we minimize waste; if we reduce waste; do we reduce the opportunity for future creative food? In general, that's probably not a concern since we are already over producing – at least in ways that don't allow for sharing and reuse later. So, we reduce our initial wastefulness. Then the "waste" we do output can be much more easily seen as food instead of trash! Karrie Jacobs was onto something; but maybe she wasn't seeing this opportunity for cultural reuse; creative reuse.
Reuse and Recycling are new areas to explore for the average graphic designer. You see reuse a lot in furniture, construction, art. Time to start seeing it in visual designing. Start to understand that waste = food, that everything is connected.
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When you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole; and the thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature, as you make it. (Christopher alexander again, this time from patter language) <https://onluminousgrounds.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/the-quality-without-a-name-part-one/> ->->->->-> ### Other bits and pieces “how might graphic design be more sustainable in its form, processes, and ideals, not solely materials.” In car and building design choices made regarding fuel efficiency or energy usage have drastic impact on aesthetics. Certain shapes, materials, solutions, etc. must be chosen or omitted. What are graphic design’s corollaries? Should one look for the most energy efficient presses? The most energy efficient printing processes? What effect does that have on the look or feel of a poster? A passive home achieves the same outcomes — walls, roof, kitchen, shelter, storage, sleeping areas, etc. — as a regular home, with similar references (people seeing a picture will know it’s a “house”), but will be more sustainable and have a look and feel in alignment with its ideals. What is the “sustainable” equivalent of say a magazine or advertisement??? Will graphic design look “different” when made by people pondering these things? To make books we fell trees. To power our cities we level mountains. Each act of creation is also an act of destruction. Is this just entropy playing its role — that there is just only so much matter and energy? Or is there something special about how we humans unmake the world around us in the process of societal “progress?” Does sustainable design honestly acknowledge this make/unmake duality? Does sustainability require minimizing the described unmaking? Can newer and more plentiful objects exist without unmaking everything around us? #### What Does Sustainable Graphic Design Look Like? A Thought Experiment with potential answers Modernism (for instance) was not about style for style’s sake, but style illuminating a novel theoretical position; style that was arrived at from a thought process, from a set of values, or from hypothesizing and experimenting. Designing for the welfare of all life is certainly a different mindset from designing for the corporate marketplace... do these things need to then look different? I have seen a few recurring “answers” to the question “What does sustainable graphic design look like?" in my work and work from the field: 1. SGD looks the same. 2. SGD looks eco-friendly. 3. SGD looks innovative. 4. SGD does not exist. - A Pessimistic interpretation? - An Optimistic interpretation? "Sustainable design does not exist" was first a pessimistic "fourth way." Is design all just trash? does design create waste period, so nothing is sustainable? Or, literally, sustainable design is not a thing: anything you are making is unmaking so much else. But! "Sustainable design does not exist" came to signify an alternative vector; it didn't exist because it was ephemeral! because it reused existing objects in a new way! that it left no trace! suddenly this felt like a prompt for new works; new questions! A useful constraint going forward. ±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±± > Modernism in graphic design has evolved from a progressive and rebellious ideology to a seductive and efficient, yet oppressively ubiquitous, visual language. > — Jerome Harris, Against, yet in the spirit of Modernism, 2019 ## A Bibliography? - De Botton, Alain. _The Architecture of Happiness_. Vintage Books. New York, NY. 2006. - Ehrenfeld, John and Hoffman, Andrew J. _Flourishing: A Frank Conversation About Sustainability_. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. 2013. - Sterling, Bruce. _The Last Viridian Note_. Nov 2008. ViridianDesign.org. January 2015. <http://www.viridiandesign.org/2008/11/last-viridian-note.html> - Sara de Bondt, Insights Lecture Series, Walker Art Center, 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUMh_UXc_dY> - Bruce Mau reference? - Against but in the spirit of modernism, Jerome Harris / <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4ygiodaY40> - Radical Nature, Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet, Friday 19 June—Sunday 18 October 2009; Barbican, London. <https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2009/event/radical-nature-art-and-architecture-for-a-changing-planet> - Jerome Harris, Against, but in the Spirit of, Modernist Graphic Design | Jerome Harris | 2019 Core77 Conference <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4ygiodaY40> - Towards relational design, Andrew Blauvelt, <https://designobserver.com/feature/towards-relational-design/7557/> - [^3R]: This is also referred to as the "[waste hierarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_hierarchy)" - [^c2c]: Fully explained in Chapter 4: Waste = Food, pg. 92 from _Cradle to Cradle_ by Michael Braungart and William McDonough, 2002. - [^minimal]: _MINIMALISM: AN OPTIMAL AESTHETIC FOR THE SUSTAINABLE DESIGN_ by Irina Sonia CHIM, Ioan BLEBEA
Inspired by Sara De Bondt, “Insights 2014 Design Lecture Series,” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, US. Co-written by De Bondt and Chris Svensson, 2009. Tweaked by Kristian Bjørnard, 2017.
The “YES” column guided many of Ecovention Europe's design decisions.
Designer, Thinker, Curator, Sustainabilitist?
Has an interesting way to organize projects on website, lists as a list of questions...
By putting things in a list you create a hierarchy, purposefully or not!
Figuring out clever ways to reuse existing materials, structures, etc. And not just in the present, but clever ways that allow continuous and future reuse. We don't know exactly what the future will bring, so our choices now for "adapting" can't hinder future adaptations as well.
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As you make your way through The Futures Cone, some interesting things start to happen. If you start steering for points further and further out from the Projected or the Probable as the vector of moves in that new direction, what was once preposterous enters now newly defined possible or even projected "cones" … So, having far out ideas CREATEs new possibles as the futures cone evolves and adapts to where we are "now" …
How else to explain this???
Purveyor of all manner of cultural creation tools. Proprietary tool maker. The anti F/LOS.
They make XD, but as of Sep 15, 2022, they acquired Figma — will adobe keep XD around?
What is the definition of this word?
Used in so many different ways.
Change must happen fast—but raw speed alone is not enough. The rapid growth of industrialism got us into this mess; quick, precise and nimble actions now will get us out of it.
A pluralistic democratic order where the the opponent is not considered an enemy to be destroyed, but an adversary whose existence is legitimate and must be tolerated.
If we can more cleverly use our land for agriculture, we can then utilize agriculture as a way to drawdown and store Carbon. (this is then a kind of Carbon Sink
agricultural land use could be part of a country's or locality's profile for greenhouse gas emissions
different countries have different profiles of emissions — in Brazil its from deforestation and then the secondary agricultural land use — not just fossil fuels...
The AIGA Design Teaching Resource is a peer-populated platform for educators to share assignments, teaching materials, outcomes, and project reflections. Browse for inspiration.
An example of a design commons
How to make this resource more of a commons?
Typically thought of as airborne substances harmful to humans. Historically this has been seen as toxins, poisons, carcinogens, visible immediate "pollution." But, it is coming to mean greenhouse gases.
Physicist, thinker, changer of our world.
Is there a way to make aliases for a tiddler title? do you just do that by writing custom text and then still linking it to a tiddler?
One of my favorite design authors.
All design:
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (Dunne & Raby) write in their 2001 book Design Noir: The Secret Life of Objects that “all design is ideological, the design process is informed by values based on a specific world view.” If our world view is the welfare of all life, then how does that shift what and how we graphic design?
All you need to know:
Becoming more confident doesn’t mean eliminating fear from your life, it means learning to live with your fear. Build the right habits and you can learn to speak and act with confidence no matter how you feel.
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we are now at a point in society where almost everything we engage with is a commodity
A concept that was never made due to some weird problems; but that sent me down this direction: The Copenhagen waste to energy plant is so clean its exhaust stack puffs only CO2 and water vapor. (Its also a public ski hill and hiking mountain) Upon capturing 1 ton of CO2, exhausts it as a smoke ring. Help you visualize this otherwise intangible aspect of sustainability!? (Bjarke Ingels Group)
(FACT CHECK NOTES FROM ISABEL!?)
Images? what else?
Music that is meant to be part of the space in which it is heard; it is for helping to create ambience? helping to create moods or feelings, less about rhythm and melody and more about feeling?
participation in the community, rather than individual reputation…
It’s time to build a human economy that benefits everyone, not just the privileged few
Does a font’s appearance matter as much as the energy and material and social ills it saves? Is selecting a font that uses minimal ink the best way to select a font? Would a font that is condensed, that uses up less space (saving paper over a print run; exposure to chemicals to the printer) be better? Can we combine the these? The thinest, most condensed, lightest ink coverage font is the most sustainable? This can easily be taken absurd lengths.
This is useful for critiquing design choices; it tackles outcomes from a resource perspective; can show a different "visual languages;" but does it embrace “the welfare of all life?”
My work revolves around inserting sustainability into my design practice. In attempting to create what I would like to call “Sustainable Graphic Design” I have had many different stops and starts. I have done things as simple as diagram my carbon footprint and the world's oil reserves to the writing of essays and rants on the subject. The pieces represented in my exhibition only scratch the surface as to what I have investigated, contemplated and designed over my time as a graduate student. My works are different ways of spreading the myriad messages of sustainability without preachiness or condescension. The goal I set for myself has always been to create a simpler understanding of the topic, while making it friendlier, yet still serious. What started out as a simple attempt to uncover an aesthetic for the realm of the sustainable ended up a diverse body of work encompassing many different media.
The first experiments I completed focused purely on visual ideas of sustainability. After a short round of aimless inquiries I came up with the question What does sustainable Graphic Design look like? and hoped to answer it with further visual study. I was documenting ideas, thought and quotes I came across relating to sustainability in general and its understanding at large. But as these works continued I began to grow tired of them. The pieces were simply aesthetic experimentation—superficial attempts to answer my questions. They were not pushing my design in any new directions, they were simply collections of nicely styled data and information. Nothing about my early work completely adopted in and of itself the principles of sustainability I was uncovering.
The Greenest Green, Understanding Sustainability, and A Sustainable Landscape all came from this period, and were subsequently refined into the gallery state. The Greenest Green is a randomly curated batch of green, sustainable and green-washed companies. The goal was to present all these different organizations, companies and brands next to each other and at least get viewers considering how Walmart and The National Wildlife Defense Fund might be somehow related—or not related at all. Visually it is truly a sampling as the green color in the center, itself named the greenest green, is an average of the CMYK values in all colors used in the collection of logos. What I was really trying to do was come up with a less arbitrary way of devising a color to use in some of my other works. This piece ends up being not much more than an inconclusive commentary on the state of greenwashing.
The diagrams in the Understanding Sustainability pair of prints are refinements and explanations for a variety of similar diagrams to be found online and in texts attempting to simplify the complexity of sustainability into single visuals. These started life as fairly simple sketches in a notebook while I was reading one afternoon. I thought I had stumbled upon something unique and brilliantly simple. I soon found however that these diagrams existed in a multitude of other places and forms. However, my final iterations raise the level of these diagrams from simple visuals into fairly useful tools in explaining and describing how sustainability can work.
The last piece to end up in the gallery from my initial explorations is the work A Sustainable Landscape. This began as an exercise in the development of systems and toolkits for creating design. All of the forms were created from a small subset of lines and geometric shapes. These shapes were combined into trees, buildings and people and then subsequently combined into a little world. Part of the piece will be in disseminating the digital files through the internet and attempting to collect additional forms created by others. The stable of forms can be continually increased as others add their vision of sustainability to the kit of parts. When printed for the gallery installation A Sustainable Landscape used the end of a paper roll leftover from printing my own and my peers other thesis works. The bends, creases and scuff marks on the paper are the visual truths to this re-use—normally these last few feet of a roll are useless to those wanting “perfect” prints.
I was next led to start more writing and intensified my reading and research into the philosophies at the root of sustainability. The more I read and wrote however, the more I felt that I could not justify actually creating physical objects as part of my practice. It seemed too much of a material waste. Here I was looking at ways to reduce consumption and improve the materiality of the goods we actually create and I wanted to print posters and make booklets out of ink and paper. I felt like a hypocrite. However, venturing further into the realm of the purely written word made me feel no less lost. (see: Sustainable Graphic Design Does Not Exist.)
Having spent quite a lot of time trying to verbally describe where sustainability exists, I wanted to reference how we already understand our world and individual lives. This created several new directions. Some simple diagrams describing the complexity that is the sustainable world were refined thanks to this extra time spent musing (The Greenest Green and Understanding Sustainability [a diptych]). What also came from my attempts at making “nothing” were my final two gallery pieces. I had a better understanding of what I wanted to create, and set out to make objects that better embodied the principles I kept seeing repeat in my research. Anything I made moving forward had to either re-used existing materials, or else coalesce from what I already had, become objects in my installation, and then return to their former lives once the gallery show ended. I managed to do this in my last two pieces.
Hello, My Name Is… was an effort to make the messages of sustainability less condescending and more facile for uptake by a still fairly unfamiliar public. If the phrasing and communication of sustainability's ideals can be made more palatable, more understandable, easier or friendlier we will have a better chance at succeeding in its implementation. The work also was the first that re-used a material. All of the prints were made over an existing publication done in collaboration with the rest of my Graphic Design MFA peers. The pages were cut down just enough to fit through a laser-printer and the typography was over-printed on top of the existing designs. This was able to combine both the written messaging I was presenting as well as the principle of “re-use.” A step forward was made. In producing the piece I was also forced to make design decisions based on the constraints of my existing materials. To properly overprint my new text I had to put the typography into large black boxes and knock the text out to the page color to make everything legible. Using this constraint took away some of the other aesthetic choices I may have made purely subjectively and forced a pragmatic solution. I would like more of my work to take this direction.
In the end my thinking on the topic of sustainability has been influenced by a huge quantity of things. The piece The Sustainabilitist Principles managed to coalesce these many ideas and practices into one synergistic piece. The objects used in the sculpture were existing objects I had or found, and are able to go back to their original state upon completion of the installation. The piece used all the books I had collected for my research. a found bookshelf, books from a book exchange that were turned into plaques (these will simply be returned to the book exchange), as well as several meters of embroidery floss (while new, this can still be reused for other work or necessity—maybe I'll take up embroidery).
The principles that I found important did not appear in every text I read on sustainability. Interconnections had to be spawned through my own investigation. From this web of ideals I created my own sustainable commandments and my own “bible” from which they come. My sustainability bible is an entire bookshelf, composed of 23 different books (and growing) by different authors in different times. Each book covers different topics, ethics, arenas of action and fundamentals. Together they provide fairly broad coverage that relates sustainability to our lives and design. Through the piece I have done the investigative work for the viewer, present them with the principles I find most useful, and provide them with the tools to further research those if they so desire.
Having finished with my exhibition and graduate coursework I keep asking myself how I can continue to grow these ideas and processes. How do I keep creating work, and yet not have to consume more and more material? Part of my installation was being able to uptake some of the waste from my other processes and print runs. This model only works if there continues to be a steady stream of waste to re-use—it requires a consumption driven society to live in symbioses with.
Something that keeps running through my head that may allow me to do this longer term on a professional scale is to try and further de-materialize my design practice. I will pose a new question to myself: how do I stop needing to use materials in the creation of my work? I can migrate more and more of my ideas and projects to the web—but the virtual world seems like the easy way out. I am interested in still creating physical objects. If my The Sustainabilitist Principles is any indicator, I believe I can find a way to keep creating visual work and graphic design that simply uptake existing pieces, uses them for what is required, and returns them to their original use or even into another work once finished.
±±±±±
Images TK
Instead of what does sustainable graphic design look like then, a more important question is what values underpin your sustainable graphic design? Or, what values does your sustainable graphic design signal out to the world?
How does your design makes tangible, makes understandable, something about sustainability?
This is doable no matter the project; no matter the prompt. There are myriad aspects of climate change and sustainability one might signal. Each even in their tiniest part we can think of as contributing to "all life flourishing."
This is another opportunity to find the context for which "beauty" exists in a design without resorting to superficial, external styling. We can focus on values or ethics in the unique contexts of each new project.
A concept that was never made due to some weird problems; but that sent me down this direction: The Copenhagen waste to energy plant is so clean its exhaust stack puffs only CO2 and water vapor. (Its also a public ski hill and hiking mountain) Upon capturing 1 ton of CO2, exhausts it as a smoke ring. Help you visualize this otherwise intangible aspect of sustainability!? (Bjarke Ingels Group)
(FACT CHECK NOTES FROM ISABEL!?)
Images? what else?
Reverberation Crosswalks are fun, brightly colored crosswalks. Just paint on cement and asphalt they still signal a sustainable vector forward. The neighborhood around this intersection is now more walkable. You can't not notice the crosswalks. They contribute to life flourishing in the city. This concept is cheap; fast; easily replicated; can be customized for region, culture, available materials, etc. (Graham Coreil Allen)
Low Tech Magazine's solar powered website signals how we might visualize energy usage; how we might enable new systems of powering our tools; questions if we really need constant connection; and how aesthetic choices correlate to physical resources even in the digital sphere. (Kris De Decker & Marie Otsuka)
The DC water mark project visualizes increased flooding and water level rise. The water level rings articulate "oh shit, this place might be underwater pretty frequently given our current projected future!" By signaling this, perhaps we can act accordingly and redirect our present towards a future where that is no longer true. Without _seeing_ your house or office or favorite park area submerged, even symbolically, you cannot envision an alternative. (Curry J. Hackett / Wayside Studio)
Enrolled in various courses and acquired certification for sustainable/green knowledge. To flaunt new found titles, created merit patches to be worn on gray coveralls during events and gardening sessions. <http://tattfoo.com/sos/SOSGreenStewardship.html> (Tattfoo Tan & S.O.S. Steward)
The cradle to cradle books are signs signaling sustainability. C2C is a "technical" nutrient — the entire book is made to be taken back into a production process — the pages are plastic, the ink reclaimable. The Upcycle is instead a biological nutrient, made to decompose and return to the cycles of nature. Paper, ink, binding, is all made to biodegrade… This fully signals the ideology of Cradle to Cradle. (Michael Braungart and William McDonough (with the design Paul Sahre))
Cranbrook, North Carolina State University, Walker Art Center
Great thinker about design, curator of many find shows of graphic design and more. His essay Towards Relational Design is one of the key pieces of design writing that has influenced pretty much everything I do.
Designs involve constructions where the visual or sonic appearance or feel is important [...] design contains an ineliminable aesthetic component. (Hamilton 2011, 57)
Hamilton's text this came from is: Hamilton, A. (2011) The aesthetics of design. In J. Wolfendale, J. Kennett and F. Allhoff (eds.) Fashion: Philosophy for Everyone, Thinking with Style. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 53–69
principles exist as a whole, so it's not a good idea to prioritize one principle over the others, such as prioritizing minimalism over durability and efficiency.
How does this relate/map to my The Sustainabilitist Manifesto & The Sustainabilitist Principles
Author
The French writer Stendahl states: “there are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness.” Perhaps sustainable graphic design must take it’s cue from this. Any design that exists which promotes the flourishing of nature’s interconnected systems is sustainable design. That doesn’t require a particular style, material, methodology, or typeface — just the right ideals and messages.
Designer, Artist, innovator.
Are 'smart cities' really smart? Lets ask nature/Biomimicry! Prashant Dhawan @ TEDxVNRVJIET
One of the greatest web tools ever made.
Association Typographique Internationale
Terms like Authenticity and Sustainability become empty verbiage when the hidden agenda is economic returns
If a design isn't sustainable, then it is Bad.
current Status Quo Design
What ecology has shown is that balance in nature is achieved by organic variation and complexity, not by homogeneity and simplification.
The ultimate aim of design must be restoring harmony in the carbon cycle. No longer can we produce meaningless prints, tchotchkes, devices, apps, objects, and software. No design may be created without first asking “does this need to exist?” and/or “does this help drawn down carbon from the atmosphere?” and/or “does this re-balance natural systems?”
We need the conscious, cooperative effort of all artists, designers, politicians, craftspeople, scientists, farmers, etc. Our new design Education must aid in this. How might a new pedagogical approach focus on the liminal; designers as connectors.
Designers must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of “climate” (climate(s) [natural, social, etc.?]? the climate? the earth? nature?) as a holistic entity AND in its separate, interconnected parts. Only then will our designing be imbued with the spirit it has lost as mere servant of capitalism.
Old styles and models for designing are not capable of producing the required new unity. New styles, new ways of working of making of seeing are required.
We must merge design with the workshop, the science lab, the forest, the internet, the ocean depths, the lecture hall, the meadow, the studio, and the public square. Designers must be the nexus of connection between all interests and needs. Our client is our climate. Our goals: drawing down carbon, the welfare of all life, and the restoration of spaceship earth.
Good luck.
Related:
BauErden » Build Earth
Earthstronauts:
The ultimate aim of design must be restoring harmony in the carbon cycle. No longer can we produce meaningless prints, tchotchkes, devices, apps, and objects. Designs cannot be created without first asking: “does this need to exist?” — “does this help drawn down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?” — “does this re-balance our natural systems?”
We need the conscious, cooperative effort of all artists, designers, politicians, craftspeople, scientists, farmers, parents, small business owners, teachers, plumbers… A new design education must aid in this endeavor. How might new pedagogical approaches focus on the liminal — on designers as connectors for these different constituencies? For everything is connected.
Designers must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of “climate” as a holistic entity AND in its separate, interconnected parts (climate(s): natural? social? _the_ planetary climate? the earth? the universe? Local climates? Micro climates?). Only then will our designs be re-imbued with the spirit lost as mere servant of capitalism.
Old styles and models for designing are not capable of producing the required new unity. Abandon them. New styles, new processes, new working ways, new making methods, and new seeing systems are required.
We shall merge design with the workshop, the science lab, the forest, the internet, the ocean depths, the car park, the lecture hall, the bus stop, the meadow, and the public square. Designers must be the nexus between present interests and needs and tomorrow's utopian possibilities.
Our client is our climate. Our goals: drawing down carbon dioxide, the welfare of all life, and the restoration of spaceship earth.
Good luck.
Art Design school in Weimar Germany.
Basically the parent of the last century of art/design education
I don't have to do anything other than be myslef and say what is on my mind. I may or may not be interesting to you — that's fine.
Maira Kalman
From Episode 15 of 70 over 70 — Shirley Ross and Scott Kalin share the joy, the little annoyances, and the responsibilities that come with having a good roommate. Then Max talks with artist Maira Kalman about how she discovered a newfound sense of herself during the pandemic and why she’s no longer looking for answers to life’s biggest mysteries at age 72.
vs Have-Do-Be ?
First we “be” what we want (peaceful, loving, inspired, abundant, successful, or whatever), then we start “doing” things from this state of being – and soon we discover that what we’re doing winds up bringing us the things we’ve always wanted to “have.”
https://mike-robbins.com/be-do-have/
related to Invest in the Process?
Be-Do-Have is a thought process, a mindset
In The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton provides some insights useful in trying to solve aesthetic quandaries around sustainability and formal beauty. Beautiful design embodies and sustains the values you hold dear.
Following Botton’s thinking, sustainable designers should see the non-sustainable as the less-than beautiful, even the ugly. Only truly sustainable things — meaning objects and forms that inspire sustainable ideals — should count as beautiful. Beautiful things ARE sustainable things, and vice versa.
Becoming Wise with broadcaster and author Krista Tippett. What does it mean to be human? And how do we want to live? Krista Tippett is one of America’s most renowned broadcasters. She explores the enduring question of what it is to be human, and how we can learn to live with greater, joy, compassion and wisdom, both individually and collectively.
Becoming Wise with Krista Tippett. Join award-winning broadcaster and author Krista Tippett at the RSA to explore the enduring question of what it is to be human, and how we can learn to live with greater, joy, compassion and wisdom, both individually and collectively.
With Elizabeth Oldfield of Theos
A knowledge worker's most precious tool is their mind. The same way we take care of our body through a healthy diet and exercise, we need to take care of our mind through a healthy content consumption and proactive thinking. Only then can we hope to generate new ideas.
Engineer, Merchant Marine, generally amazing person, works at GE, really cares about sustainability.
We are perpetually dissatisfied
We see the benefits of our goals with out seeing the problems or the sacrifices of the goals.
So many big ideas. what to do with them all? how to turn them into reality!?
Charcoal made from waste biological materials on purpose as a Carbon Sink
Could we switch to using this as currency?
A traditional Petroleum Diesel equivalent made from plant and animal oil sources. Frequently made from Soy, Canola, and other commerical vegetable oils. Can be made from waste oil as well.
I don't completely remember the science, but you take oils, you start with triglycerides, and through transesterification – mixing with alcohol in some steps – end up with long-chain fatty acid esters; this is the biodiesel... and glycerin as the "waste"? something like that...
Learn more about this.
An amazing Art School model. Wonderful ideas for Pedagogy, Critical Pedagogy, Empowerment Education...
Students were workers, farmers, Collaborators
3D rendering, video editing, 2D animation, basically everything.
Image.

1972?
Earth, as Seen by Astronauts Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans and Harrison Schmitt from Apollo 17
NASA's first image of the entire sunlit earth from space. Also the worlds first picture of itself. The only one taken by a real human on real film. Taken by Apollo 17 mission. All more recent "blue marbles" are composites from combining satellite imagery.
Things that have used this image:
2012 composite blue marble update; the other hemisphere from the original

Blue Marble 2012
A 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012. This image was released to the public on January 25, 2012.
The NPP satellite was renamed 'Suomi NPP' on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.
Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring
Image Number: PIA18033
Date: January 4, 2012
What makes a book a book? when does a book go from being a random pile of loose pages to a book?
Tea Uglow has some cool thoughts on this...

One of my heroes.
Part of Long Now Foundation, Ambient Music, Oblique Strategies, and so much more.
Maybe also order a bunch more of the kinds of plugs and adapters I need for life? Or at least sort through the bins at home and see what I can refind?
Science fiction autor and design critic
A salon talk by Bruce Sterling
The future is a kind of history that hasn’t happened yet. The past is a kind of future that has already happened. The present moment vanishes before it can be described. Language, a human invention, lacks the power to fully adhere to reality.
We live in a very short now and here, since the flow of events in spacetime is mostly closed to human comprehension. But we have to say something about the future, since we have to live there. So what can we say? Being “futuristic” is a problem in metaphysics; it’s about getting language to adhere to an unknowable reality. But the futuristic quickly becomes old-fashioned, so how can the news stay news?
Bruce Sterling is a futurist, journalist, science-fiction author, and culture critic. He is the author of more than 20 books including ground-breaking science ficiton and non-fiction about hackers, design and the future. He was the editor in 01986 of Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986) which brought the cyberpunk science fiction sub-genre to a much wider audience. He previous spoke for Long Now about "The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole" in 02004. His Beyond the Beyond blog on Wired.com is now in its 15th year. His most recent book is Pirate Utopia.
Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
less means:
Instead of trying to build products that do more, we build products that do less.
- Less software is easier to manage.
- Less software reduces your codebase and that means
- less maintenance busywork (and a happier staff).
- Less software lowers your cost of change so you can adapt quickly. You can change your mind without having to change boatloads of code.
- Less software results in fewer bugs.
- Less software means less support.
Friend and artistic colleague. Musician, hunter, and parent. Also from Northfield MN
Gilbert describes capitalism as:
“a situation in which private individuals or corporations are allowed to use any means available to them – short of openly violent coercion – to accumulate vast profits from the sale of commodities, even if, in the process, they are paying workers very low wages, wrecking the local environment, or forcing people to change their way of life against their will.”
from Jeremy Gilbert, in his recent book Twenty-First Century Socialism & What is Capitalism?
No cultural object can retain its power when there are no longer new eyes to see it
One of the most abundant elements on our planet. I combines to make all kinds of things. The hardest substance: diamond, and one of the softest, graphite. With other elements it makes all the different components we need for life on earth...
Key piece of Carbon Dioxide; all Fossil Fuels, etc.
Any object, location, device, process, etc. to store CO2 for extended periods of time
Ecovention Europe was a book produced with curator Sue Spaid for an exhibition of the same name at Museum De Domijnen Hedendaagse Kunst. The publication gives an overview of Ecologically inventive artists working in Europe over the last 60 years.
The book is a sequel of sorts to Green Acres, also produced with Sue Spaid. In the interim between the two projects — GA and EE — I heard designer Sara de Bondt discuss the Radical Nature catalog her studio designed for the Barbican in London* . De Bondt's studio ended up writing a sustainable printing manifesto as part of their research for the catalog's production. De Bondt's "manifesto" reminded me about all the various constraints that might help to frame design decisions: How might I re-examine the design choices of Green Acres through some new constraints? Could I improve the sustainability (and the sustainable aesthetics) for Ecovention Europe? This seemed like a good time to put ideas like Reuse and Reduce into play amongst other things.
One of the items in De Bondt's printing manifesto is "use less ink." I decided this meant selecting colors more carefully for this project. The palette of Ecovention Europe uses no colors that adds up to more that 100% ink coverage. (Ecovention Europe uses CMYK: and color palette swatches start at 100% pure C, M, Y, or K, and then are mixed in equal percentages to keep 100% or less total coverage: 50% + 50%; 33% + 33% + 33%; etc.). This resulted in a color palette that was fairly specific to this book. Reducing ink coverage also led to a specific graphic solution, bitmapped city aerial photos as the decorative section markers. In Green Acres I had used full bleed aerial photos across and entire two page spread as a section break. For Ecovention Europe we kept a similar concept, an aerial map, but didn't bleed the images AND made them bitmaps with much less "filled" area. Much less ink is used for each section break comparatively to the solution from Green Acres.
On a similar Reduce thread, the text columns in Green Acres ended at full paragraphs breaks to make editing easier. This gave a formally-nice rhythm to text columns, but it was an inefficient use of space. With Ecovention Europe, I reduced this space by running all the text the full column heights. This had the secondary benefit of minimizing superfluous decoration: In Green Acres, superficial decorative elements filled those blanks left by text columns ending mid-page. So, less overall pages needed for an equivalent amount of text, AND again, a reduction in overall ink.
I even tried to reduce decision making through Reuse. The page size and page grid for Green Acres had a lot of conceptual reasoning invested into it, and so I reused the page templates, type choices, grid setup, etc. as yet another way to "reduce" resources — time, energy saved, even if just mental energy.
As a final conclusion to Ecovention Europe, Sue thought it would be good to include this thinking in the book itself, so the final page of EE is an attempt at explaining the ideas that went into its production.
As a conceptual exercise, this was great. But, did it make much of a difference? How could this be done differently and improved upon again next time? Is there an alternative to making this book at all? (Should this exist? I didn’t ask that question before we began!)
The book itself was printed by a digital on demand printer in europe, printed in a limited quantity with little material and labor wasted for setup. Books do not need to be stored, and at some point, if reuired, it is easy to get more copies of the book.
========
Two of the common “3R’s” — reuse and reduce — were important to the design of this book.
Reuse: Sue Spaid and I worked on Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses and Abandoned Lots together in 2012. The grid for Green Acres had a lot of time and conceptual reasoning invested into it. Since Ecovention Europe is a sort of sibling to Green Acres, we decided to reuse the Green Acres page layout templates. The type choices, grid setup, etc. for this book are lifted from Green Acres and tweaked for the minor new and different needs required for Ecovention Europe. Although sustainable designers routinely find novel ways to reuse materials, I’ve found little discussion for the possibility of reusing ideas and solutions, either as an exemplary form of reuse nor as a useful design tool.
Reduce: One goal for the manufacturing of this book is to expend fewer materials, most noticeably ink, than in the previous tomes I’ve designed. Using less ink required me to select colours more carefully and to use them more sparingly. No colour adds up to more that 100% ink coverage. (The book uses CMYK: and colour palette selections all start at 100% pure C, M, Y, or K, and then are mixed in equal percentages to keep 100% or less total coverage: 50% + 50%; 33% + 33% + 33%, etc.). Another way I tried to reduce ink was by using bitmapped city maps as the decorative section markers. The feeling of a filled area is kept, but since many pixels end up being blank, much less ink is used. Attempts to keep things from bleeding and to fill each page’s grid completely were also made (reduce paper, reduce ink). In Green Acres, I used some superficial decorative elements that looked nice but served no functional purpose — they merely took up room. I also ended columns only where a full paragraph ended to make a few things easier from a design perspective (less has to change if something is added or removed while things are being finalised; you don’t have to deal with as many annoying line or paragraph breaks across columns, etc.). So, while this gave a ragged, formally-nice flow to text columns, it was an inefficient use of space in the book. With the layout of Ecovention Europe, I spent a lot of effort reducing the amount of unused space, thus minimising paper waste (however, more time was used, still a resource not to be wasted).
As a conceptual exercise, this was good. But, did it actually make much of a difference? I don’t know yet. In a book like this, there are a lot of images, yet the artworks don’t adhere to the same ink coverage rules that I set for section colours and body text. One might also ask if I could achieve the look I want using only black, which would save a lot in terms of ink and clean-up over CMYK. Perhaps.
How could this be done differently and better next time? Would a different typeface save ink and space? Are there other ways to handle image inclusion? Is there an alternative to making this? (Should this exist at all? I didn’t ask myself that question before we began.) While I was not prepared to tackle these questions for this book, I will continue exploring and attempting to resolve them with subsequent projects.
========
Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses, and Abandoned Lots was a book produced with curator Sue Spaid, designer Jenna Kaminsky, and editor Marianne Amoss for the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, OH. Green Acres featured artists using farming as their art practice.
The goal: make the resultant book "sustainable." These were sustainability focused artists, how could I represent their ecological inventiveness in a printed book? The main things that made the production of this book "sustainable" at the time were that it was printed on demand, and it used recycled, unbleached paper. (A Sustainable Printing Manifesto)
Visually, the book's design was meant to be critical; the juxtaposition of small art farm graphics vs. giant commercial farm references via a constrained square grid and the aerial commercial farmland photography.
While the book intends to say something different, it conforms to common standards of "good" modernist layout. Other than a minor production method improvement, it's the same … ! Is it Sustainable Graphic Design?
========
This is an interim piece for the MICA graduate admissions office. Visually the goal was to convey the diversity of graduate programs, as well as some of the current chaos of the present — this was produced during the fall of 2020, still during the uncertainty of the Covid19 pandemic. Different graduate directors were trying to convey the values of their programs, could the visuals contribute to helping visually provide the concept of many disparate things existing together? AND, there was an ask for the piece to embrace "sustainability."
So, the design decisions are spurred by those constraints. Free, open, accessible culture is an important value of mine, and that makes its way into this via the imagery selected and in open source fonts. This also gave me ways to find "art historically" relevant images, and repurpose them to my meaning making.
The printing solution was designed to minimize printing waste — the front and back of this "poster" are printed all as one plate on a single press sheet. The press sheet goes through the press, then is flipped over, and goes through the press again, voila. This means front and back of the pages were able to all be printed with one plate per color instead of two or more… All of these "values" intermingled here together, do they add up to a sustainable design? a beautiful design?
Sustainabilitists do not believe in change for the sake of it. Change should only happen when it is necessary. Maybe it’s a better idea, maybe a material has become scarce, maybe the feeling is wrong … just make sure it is anything other than just: “let’s change it!”
African American Designer
There will never be another Cheryl Miller, find your voice, don't duplicate create.
Related:
Designer, Writer, Email friend.
From Sustainaspeak:
Using less of the Earth's resources more efficiently and productively in a circular economy and making the transition from carbon-based fuels to renewable energies are defining features of the emerging economic paradigm. In the new era we can each become a node in the nervous system of the biosphere
— Jeremy Rifkin, economist
The economy can be defined as the careful management of the wealth and resources of a community. The traditional Linear Economy of "Take, Make, Waste" is reaching its limits by relying on enormous quantities of easily accessible cheap energy and materials. The current supply chain follows the reduce, reuse, recycle concept, but this is still a waste hierarchy relying on finite resources and the ecosystem’s limited ability to breakdown wastes.
The idea of a circular economy aims for the sustainable use and protection of material resource efficiencies by engineering everything to be continuously reused or recycled. Every aspect of design, manufacturing, retail, reusing, and recycling would require rethinking to be restorative and regenerative by design. With the massive amounts of waste from irresponsible manufacturing, disposable lifestyles, volatile prices, ad increasing geopolitical tensions with the scarcity of resources, a circular economy can help stabilize these problems by decoupling economic growth from natural resource consumption. There would be tremendous economic advantages for businesses adopting the circular economy concept, as well as transitioning to renewable energies as indicated by economist Jeremy Rifkin.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2013), in Towards the Circular Economy, lists three driving principles of a circular economy: the preservation and enhancement of natural capital, the optimization of resource yields, and the fostering of system effectiveness. In enhancing natural capital, finite sources and renewable resource flows need to be controlled by dematerializing what we use. Extending product life can optimize resource yields, and improve reuse by always keeping the highest quality of product usefulness.
Recycling is a limited solution, as remanufacturing is energy intensive and results in products that are downgraded from their original quality, leading to the continuing demand for virgin resources. In an ideal circular economy wastes and toxins would be designed out of the system, allowing materials to be used over and over with high quality.
The European Union adopted a circular economy package in December 2015 setting challenging waste targets of bans on sending wood, plastics, textiles, and food to landfills. The goal is to generate the maximum value and use from all the raw materials, products, and waste, creating energy savings and thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The German Resource Efficiency Program (ProgRess) and Toronto's Tool Library, as well as the progressive materials assessment standards, such as Cradle to Cradle and the Living Product Challenge are all examples of innovative resource rethinking.
The circular economy comes down to matching existing material waste streams with new applications. Sharing information, optimizing resource use, close-looping, and exchanging both materials and information will be needed for industries to reduce the environmental damage from natural resource extractions.
See Also:
Further Sources:
[S001 NASA Earth?] [^Nasa]
[S003 KB Bamboo Harvest]
[S005 A beginning?]
It was June 2019. I was on my roof re-mortaring my house and listening to podcasts about regenerative agriculture and carbon sequestration… The mental space this home maintenance left me with sent me thinking about how I as a mostly visual designer might do something as useful as these carbon sequestering farmers I was hearing about …
[S006 FreshPress?]
I got in touch with Eric Benson. Eric has a paper making farm and studio called "Fresh Press" at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They grow native prairie grasses, and use them (mixed with other local agricultural waste) to make paper.
[S007 drawdown SSS book sketch]
I pitched this idea to Eric: using his paper I wanted to start making books that sequestered carbon. Prairie grass stores carbon in soil over time, his paper was an important part of my idea, but it wasn't enough — I asked Eric if he knew how I might find ink to use that direct air captured carbon too! The book text would slowly reveal itself as carbon was drawn into the ink.
Eric wasn't sure, but he thought we should loop in Marc O'Brien. Marc was working in the bay area designing with some carbon capture start ups — maybe one of his clients or colleagues could help.
Nope. Carbon capturing ink as I envision it isn't yet a thing. But, Eric, Marc, and I ended up having a longer, worthwhile exchange around teaching climate science in college design courses; as well as how more designers might be encouraged to undertake their work in climate consious ways.
[S008 CD website?]
A few phone calls later, and tangible things began to happen. Marc and his business partner, Sarah Harrison, officially launched [Climate Designers {dot} org](https://climatedesigners.org) in the fall of 2019. And ever since then Eric, Marc, and I have been working on [Climate Designers EDU](https://www.climatedesigners.org/edu), a budding resource for design educators.
[S009 Mighty networks...]
The Climate designer community brings together design practitioners to share and master climate action practices. We want to empower every designer, every type of designer, to feel confident in using design to help avert a climate crisis.
[S010 WIACD]
A climate designer is a designer using their creative powers to fight climate change. "Climate designer" is a title one may grant upon themselves. If you are a designer doing (or wanting to do) work in the climate space; you should call yourself a climate designer.
[S011 CD Goals]
The community has two main goals:
1. Provide resources, knowledge, and community for designers to take on climate action in their work. 2. Inspire, motivate, and graduate new climate designers by providing climate-focused resources for educators.
[S012 Practice!]
1. Provide resources, knowledge, and community for designers to take on climate action in their work.
Goal 1 is about updating design practice: how to tangibly, actionably, pragmatically shift design to consider climate as a key design constraint of any prompt and new project.
We want designers who feel unable to or unsure of how to use their work to tackle climate change to see how others are working. How does factoring in climate change change business plans, materials, processes, career paths, tactics, etc.? Let's move further and faster together towards best practices, new ideas, & repurposing old ideas in the climate space?
We do not want to make you feel bad about your existing design position, nor that you have to quit your job to work this way — how can you do this in your existing role?
- Maybe that's bringing new climate-aware criteria and constraints into decision making: materials that use less energy? typefaces that require less ink? software and service providers that have sustainability initiatives? a local, socially positive workforce? - If you get to help pick projects or you run your own studio can you look for clients whose missions align socially and ecologically? - If you are working in-house somewhere that seems unrelated to or disconnected from climate change you may just need to ask more questions… find where you can affect an outcome no matter how small. (also, nothing is operating outside of climate impacts).
[S013 climate base]
If you do want a design job directly related to drawing down carbon, or you think where you are is a lost cause, Climate Designers has help with that too: the ClimateBase job board!
[S014 Pegagogy]
2. Inspire, motivate, and graduate new climate designers by providing climate-focused resources for educators.
Goal 2 is concerned with evolving design pedagogy.
We're helping to answer questions like:
- What skills do students (& educators) need to have in order to address our climate crisis? - How can design educators support students as they start their path towards climate designing? - How do you integrate the required technical, social, scientific, & philosophical work into design courses? - How can we help introduce climate related concerns into design curriculum at large?
Climate Design EDU is gathering materials from the Climate Design teachers and professors currently integrating climate design in their courses. And as our curated selection grows we hope to generate new resources and new materials creating even more "climate design" programs and curriculum arcs. Illuminate and illustrate where different opportunities and colloabroations might lie depending on what environment you find yourself teaching in. What simple, small steps one can take if you're not able to affect the curriculum as a whole.
[S016 What does a climate designer make?]
That's what Climate Designers *is* — designers engaging with the climate in their work and teaching. In my utopian vision, here's how design outputs evolve and change when you adopt "climate design" as a mindset.
[S017 Back to the book]
Let's loop back to the beginning (everything is connected, cycles are everywhere). The carbon negative book idea that connected Eric, Marc and I is an example of work Climate Designers should concept, make, and develop: design objects clearly embodying aspects of climate change.
[S018 Grasp the Invisible?]
While a sequestering book isn't likely to exist anytime soon, even the *idea* of objects like that is useful. A book like this would require the absorption of known amount of CO2 to become legible — this becomes a sign for X quantity of carbon and helps one grasp what is otherwise intangible.
[S019 SSS]
I like to call designs like this "Signs signaling Sustainability." This is the real opportunity for Designers taking climate action — turning every design opportunity into a sign signaling sustainability. Make tangible, make understandable something about climate change. This is doable no matter the project; no matter the prompt.
So this sequestering book example focuses on "visualizing CO2". But, there are myriad other aspects of climate change and sustainability one might signal.
[S020 DrawDown]
I am particularly *drawn* to [Project DrawDown](https://www.DrawDown.org) as a framework revealing opportunities for "signs signaling sustainability". Project DrawDown presents the most effective means for pulling carbon out of the atmostphere. Digging into all the "solutions" on Project DrawDown, the ways artists and designers might involve themselves is multitudinous. All kinds of work can be reframed as a "sign signaling sustainability" if you rethink the aims of a prompt so that it fits into an idea from Project DrawDown's table of solutions.
[S021 Reverberations Crosswalk]
Take for instance Graham Coreil Allen's *Reverberation Crosswalks*. On the surface, these are fun, brightly colored crosswalks — paint on cement and asphalt; not particularly innovative in the "new materials" or "direct carbon capture." But! looking at Project DrawDown solutions, *walkable cities* is the 50th overall reduction solution. Suddenly *Reverberations Crosswalks* signals a sustainable vector forward. The neighborhood around this school is more walkable. You can't not notice the crosswalks, hopefully this makes you more likely to walk yourself. This concept is cheap; fast; easily replicated; can be customized for region, culture, available materials, etc.; AND can help make more people walk in the city. Bam! Climate Designed.
[S022 Low Tech]
Distributed Solar Photovoltaics is also on Drawdown's list. And Low Tech Magazine's solar powered website signals how we might visualize energy usage; how we might enable new sytems of powering our tools; questions if we really need constant connection; and how aesthetic choices correlate to physical resources even in the digital sphere.
[S023 HWM]
And you don't have to just signal "sustainable" things from DrawDown... that's just an easy way to get started.
The DC water mark project visualizes increased flooding and water level rise — where these impacts will be felt by you in this place! The water level rings articulates to us "oh shit, this place might be underwater pretty frequently given our current projected future!" Then maybe we can act accordingly and redirect our present towards a future where that is no longer true. Without *seeing* your house or office or favorite park area submerged, even symoblically, you cannot envision an alternative.
[S025 SOS]
- Tattfoo Tan, *S.O.S. Steward* Enrolled in various green courses and acquired certification for green knowledge. To flaunt my new found title in the form of a merit patch on my gray coverall and wear it during events and gardening session. I'm intrigue by the certification of knowledge and the power that was bestow by the agency that gave the certificate. Partly propelled by the thirst of knowledge and partly to sustain the endurance of going to classes and community service requirements of these courses. (<http://tattfoo.com/sos/SOSGreenStewardship.html>)
[S026 Ecovention]
- Ecovention Grid/Color palette Attempt at minimizing ink coverage, but still getting a range of colors so as to uniquely colorcode each section of a exhibition catalog. ?
[S027 Climates book]
- *Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary* Neil Donnelly, 2016. The interior paper gets gradually thinner from the beginning to the end, conveying scarcity and depletion through the materiality of the book. One could easily see something like this in reverse, perhaps a book about sea level rise has its paper get thicker as the book progresses? (<https://neildonnelly.net/#climates>)
- Space Hippie? - Improvisational Lamps? - Flower based "down" substitute? - Amager Bakke unmade vapor ring? - Print posters on found paper?
These examples communicate additional information as key aspects of their design. They redirect culture towards better *future possibles.* And! this is a great place to work as a graphic designer.
[S028 An Ending?]
Success in climate designers' stated goals means a future where "climate designers" no longer need exist. *Climate designing* is no longer extra, it becomes plain *designing*. Did you use a grid? did you sequester carbon? did you match your aesthetic to you audience? did you reduce your energy requirements? did you kern your headlines? did you restore spaceship earth? No? well then that's *bad* design.
[S029 Nasa earth again]
Earthstronauts.
The ultimate aim of design must be restoring harmony in the carbon cycle. No longer can we produce meaningless prints, tchotchkes, devices, apps, objects, and software. No design shall be created without first asking “does this need to exist?” – “does this drawn down carbon from the atmosphere?” – “does this re-balance natural systems?”
We need conscious, cooperative effort between all artists, designers, politicians, craftspeople, scientists, farmers, parents, small business owners. A new design education must aid in this. How might a new pluralistic pedagogical approaches focus on the liminal; designers as connectors for all of these actors? For everything is connected.
Designers must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of “climate” as a holistic entity AND in its separate, interconnected parts (climate(s): natural, social, etc.? _the_ planetary climate? the earth? nature? the universe?). Only then will our designing be imbued with the spirit it has lost as mere servant of capitalism.
Old styles and models for designing are not capable of producing the required new unity. Abandon them. New styles, new processses, new ways of working, of making, and of seeing — again, pluralistic — are required.
We must merge design with the workshop, the science lab, the forest, the internet, the ocean depths, the lecture hall, the meadow, the studio, and the public square. Designers must be the nexus between new interests and needs. Our client is our climate. Our goals: drawing down carbon, the welfare of all life, and the restoration of spaceship earth.
Good luck.
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[^Nasa]: Blue Marble 2012; A contemporary blue marble image, image was released to the public on January 25, 2012. NASA <https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons/31258502484/in/album-72157646697326324/>
[^BIG.DK]: Check out the Amager Bakke project on Bjarke Ingels Group website… <https://big.dk/#projects-arc>
[^EB]: Eric Benson also recounts his version of this tale here: <https://ericbenson.medium.com/behind-the-syllabus-how-to-introduce-climate-science-into-your-design-curriculum-36d38f14f5ab>
other stuff I referenced?
- <https://www.freshpress.studio/projects> - <https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons/31258502484/in/album-72157646697326324/> - <https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons/5052124705/in/album-72157625096855580/> - <https://www.climatedesigners.org/edu/behindthesyllabus> - <https://thepangaia.com/pages/flowerdown> - <https://www.nike.com/t/space-hippie-04-mens-shoe-gGWDLk/CZ6398-001> - <https://ericbenson.medium.com/behind-the-syllabus-how-to-introduce-climate-science-into-your-design-curriculum-36d38f14f5ab> - <https://www.nike.com/space-hippie>
We are designers and creative professionals from all industries, committed to using our creative skills for climate action.
Climate Designers Include:
A series of video lectures from Project Drawdown
Your climate solutions journey begins now. Filled with the latest need-to-know science and fascinating insights from global leaders in climate policy, research, investment, and beyond, this video series is a brain-shift toward a brighter climate reality.
Climate Solutions 101 is the world’s first major educational effort focused solely on solutions. Rather than rehashing well-known climate challenges, Project Drawdown centers game-changing climate action based on its own rigorous scientific research and analysis. This course, presented in video units and in-depth conversations, combines Project Drawdown’s trusted resources with the expertise of several inspiring voices from around the world. Climate solutions become attainable with increased access to free, science-based educational resources, elevated public discourse, and tangible examples of real-world action. Continue your climate solutions journey, today.
from Project Drawdown
Climate Solutions at Work, presented by Drawdown Labs, is a how-to guide for employees looking to make every job a climate job.
When was the last time you talked to a climate scientist? For most Americans, the answer is never. We’re here to change that.
Some ideas for projects from the Climify Podcast by Eric Benson and Marc O'Brien
From Sustainaspeak:
Ideally, a Zero Waste supply chain that completely reuses, recycles, and/or composts all materials.
Closed-loop supply is a resource-planning model that incorporates returned products as part of the supply chain. This maximizes the value of created over the entire life-cycle of a product. There are several types of closed-loop systems related to sustainable design such as closed-loop biomass, closed-loop cooling, closed-loop recycling, the Circular Economy, and closed-loop ecological systems.
In closed-loop manufacturing resource planning, the original manufacturer takes responsibility for the return loop process. Product returns can come from customers, as in take-back programs or from production and manufacturing by products or components. closed=loop biomass refers to any organic material from a plant which is planted exclusively for use at a qualified biomass facility to create electricity.
In a closed loop ecological system, the waste prodcuts produced by one species must be utilised by at lsaet one other species and does not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system. So if the goal is to main tain a life form such as a human, all the waste products (carbon-dioxide, urine, and feces) must eventually be converted into oxygen, water, and food. This would be the goal of small human-made ecospheres, which would be self-contained, self-sustainabing ecosystems, and could potentially be used as systems for life support during space flights and colonization.
See Also:
Further Sources:
CO2 stands for Carbon Dioxide. One Carbon and two Oxygens. One of the main greenhouse gases that we can most easily control no longer sending up into the atmosphere!
Coal has to be running all of the time, it can't quickly ramp up or down (same for nuclear)
Sustainability is not about individualism; not about individual actions. It's about the collective. How can trust in our world and other people improve the contexts? Our communal success is just that – communal. So we need to think about our own success in ways that are more than purely individual.
See JOMO p63 ¶2 l22, The Joy of Missing Out (JOMO)
CEnR is an approach to conducting research, not a methodology
CEnR is an umbrella term for a range of research:
Essential Principles:
Life is complex. Today’s problems involve all manner of inputs, outputs, content, contexts, devices, and formats. It is impossible to know or understand all aspects of a design problem. But, while life is complex, it does not have to be confusing. A good teacher shows students how to evaluate Complexity and then provide clues as to what are appropriate uses, paths, etc. with the end goal of making the designed objects around us usable and understandable. Design is a tool for making complex comprehensible. This is not the same as making things simple, it is about properly communicating intent.
Related:
complexity is a fundamental feature of our universe. designing with the goal of making everything “simple” is foolish.
to graphic designing is trying to make the complex intelligible
related:
Complexity is not the problem. Ambiguity is. Simplicity does not solve Ambiguity, Clarity does.
In nature nothing goes to waste. Nearly all carbon based life can be "composted" or turned back into soil, ready to nurish and grow whatever comes next.
How do I cook food with food waste? can the heat of Compost be enough to provide cooking heat?
Inspired by Hugh Pocock
Different intents require different solutions. Conceptual thinking results in work where ideas based on content and context map to formal conclusions (the correct contentual «» contextual «» formal relationships are found). Being able to adeptly use and describe connections between form, content, and context is key — ideas are only useful if they result in the lucid arguments (meaning it is the correct concept and the correct form for the audience). Design solutions lacking integrity between content and context and form, or work propped up solely by baroque explanation or otherwise tenuous themes, has not been properly thought out. (See accurate vs. formal)
“There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named. It is never twice the same, because it always takes its shape from the particular place in which it occurs.”
— Christopher Alexander
The qualities that do promote the welfare of all life are, like the quality without a name Alexander presents, ineffable. And like the quality without a name, the aesthetics that correspond with this — the graphic design visuals that might show the welfare of all life — shift and change with different contexts. A wild garden, a biodegradable book, a thriving farmers market.
In prepping this lecture I was looking for the thread that connected my works together. That thread I thought was: what does sustainable graphic design look like? Everything I make continues to be an attempt at providing more answers to this.
But, I used to be hung up on the visual aesthetics. I wanted sustainable things to LOOK DIFFERENT to have their own aesthetic… but what I've learned is that the way sustainable graphic design looks isn't as important as the values underpinning the designs themselves. Anything that helps promote the flourishing of nature’s interconnected systems will look "correct" formally. That doesn’t require a (externally decided) particular style, material, or typeface.

Confidence is "The willingness to try" (from Mel Robbins)
The pitfalls of anthropocentrism
negative: just shrugging our shoulders in the face of human impact, and just let nature take its course
positive: the invitation to embrace the colonization of the planet and the domination of nature as humanity's manifest destiny
Anthropocentrims: what is the cultural conidtion of the human?
HUMAN supremacy: Humans are superior to all other life forms and entitled to USE them
* the earth belongs to humanity * the earth consits of resources for the betterment of people * humans are obviously superior to all other species > this is an invisible belief system that can be seen in how most people interact with the biosphere
Civilization seems unable to halt its expansionism even in the face of its own potential demise.
what is the relationship between humanity and nature?
amnesia about the living world is the existential condition we have reached in exchange for the supremacist exercise of power.
Alienation from the biosphere
The framework keeps the spotlight on human ingenuity to solve problems and it even invites admiration for that ingenuity
A piecemeal technological framework avoids challenging human expansionism — but it wants to make human dominion “sustainable”
What possibilities open if we choose to abandon anthropocentrism?
What possibilities open if we choose to abandon anthropocentrism and create a new world view and a new civilization?
Part of Roland Barthes semiology.
Connotation is not what something literally says but the ideas a sign (an image, or typeface, etc.) invoke!
related to Denotation
This is the realm of restrictions, stipulations and specifications. Defined at the outset, Limitations can guide a solution. Not to be confused with sacrifice (which is reactive and loss-based), constraint results from analyzing available options.
Publishing is about content. Getting content to where you need it. Getting it into the form you need it. Content needs structure. It needs hierarchy. However, the end-form the content takes should dictate the style. Content should remain structured, yet style-less.[^1]
In a perfect world, blank, structured, meta-data rich content is fed to whatever service, tool, program, etc. desired and then is picked apart and displayed whatever way is best. We are not yet in this perfect world. Content is not created in this clean, pure way. Writers write, editors edit, designers design, developers develop, creators create — a soupy process of back-and-forth ensues. Since each type of “creator” has their own set of tools, the revisions, changes, updates, etc. that happen all flow across emails, different documents, and different programs and are not always easily manageable, trackable, or cross-compatible. This does not have to be the case.
It isn’t always known all the places content will be needed or desired. This is short sited. It is also a common problem. When someone is creating a book, the workflow is optimized for a physical tome to be the final resting place for that content. A year or two passes when it is realized that the book content is needed for a website, or a magazine, or whatever else instead. This necessitates pulling all the final edits, changes, formatting — whatever — from the design file, and recreating a text file to move to the next place. This is inefficient, frustrating and error prone. It also means that at the end of this process the most correct version of the book’s text and layout are locked into a layout program document. This isn’t easy to use again for another sized book, etc.
The same can happen on the web. A blog is created. Originally this is just for fun. Many posts rack up. Visitors come. Suddenly a magazine article is asked for, or a book deal is signed. How does that content get to the form necessary for print production from its digital, database locked forms?[^2]
What these scenarios (and many others) share in common is that the content was created directly with and for the tools of immediate, intended production — not just for any tools of production. Content should be able to live on its own and just wait for where it wants to be sent, not live singular, complicated lives that don’t mix well.
On the one hand this is easy, it just requires some simple refiguring of the creation and tracking process. On the other its incredibly complicated because the tools we’ve learned to use are mostly ill-suited for this process. Microsoft word for example. A horrible content creation tool. Everything is mired in mucky styling and formatting that is incredibly hard to get out both for use in a print context and in a web context. Indesign for layout doesn’t out of the box understand very much in the way of text-only formatting. The web is rigid and automated in ways that make matching styling and flexibility to content occasionally frustrating. The key still lays in the creation stage.
…
I will present several thought-experiments (which have semi-functioning web and print experiments to visually exemplify the ideas and process) that show a variety of ways that “content”[^3] can better conform to its idealized, perfect form suitable for a “create anywhere, publish everywhere” mindset.
First, a book that has already been designed will be examined. A final InDesign file will go from a formatted, rigid document, back into raw content. This is important as often the “design” phase does affect the content. This method respects this idea, yet still conforms to an idealized content that can be tracked, edited, updated, and reused on its own. This also begins to pave the way for a more dynamic print workflow where content updates can update printable PDF files — say for a print-on-demand project or downloadable PDF situation.
Next, a website full of content created specifically for that publication channel only will be turned into repository of raw content that still publishes as desired to the web, but suddenly opens up uses for print, or other digital formats. (for example, you have a website AND a separate, optimized phone application, whats the best way to get the content to both places?).
Finally, an idealized workflow will be examined. Options for best practices will be discussed.
Collaboration is important in the creation of great content. Writers, designers, developers, etc. all have key roles they play. One of the goals of the “create anywhere, publish everywhere” methodology is that collaborative contributions should be valued, allowed, and made as easy as possible through whatever tool the user is most familiar with. With content in the correct format upfront, this can be possible.
[^1]: I am here referring to visual style, not written style [^2]: Actually, it is a lot easier to go from the web to print than vise versa, at least in terms of getting clean, structured but unstyled content… but we’ll get to this more later. [^3]: By content I mean a the collection of text documents, images, and any other necessary files or data required for publishing what is being created.
Kirby Ferguson's main point in Everything is a Remix — all cultural production is somehow a remix, meaning that all cultural output is in someway a copied, transformed, and combined version of everything else that has come before.
The rules and regulations involved in figuring out how a piece of cultural production can be used. Legal ramifications exist for not understanding and/or misusing a copyrighted piece of work…
By William McDonough & Michael Braungart
Fundamental design book for sustainable design. A triple bottom line text.
We can make as much as we want of anything we want as long as the materials and systems are infinitely cycled and that all Waste = Food for the next processes.
Biological Nutrient vs. Technical Nutrient
From Sustainaspeak:
Pollution is nothing but resources we're not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.
— R. Buckminster Fuller, I Seem To Be A Verb: Environment and Man's Future
Waste equals Food, whether it is food for the Earth, or for a closed industrial cycle. We manufacture products that go from cradle to grave. We want to manufacture them from cradle to cradle.
We live in a throwaway economy in which finite resources are being wasted. More and more resources are being extracted from the Earth's crust, while requiring more and more energy in the production, processing, manufacturing, transportation, and disposing of these materials. Buckminster referred to not harvesting our valuable and wasted resources as a type of pollution. Our products purchased are just the tip of a vast pile of extracted resources, carbon-emitting fuel, and toxic wastes, and are often the products of unfair labor practices.
The potential for reducing material use in modern industrial economies by using only one-fourth of the virgin raw materials and still functioning very efficiently was recognized in Germany in the 1990s by Schmidt-Bleek and von Weizsäcker, who called this potential resource reduction Factor 4.
Material use reduction begins with recycling, which also generates tremendous energy savings, reduces carbon emissions, reduces air and water pollution, and slashes the size of our growing landfills. The steel discarded each year is enough to meet the needs of the U.S. auto industry. Steel made from recycled scrap metal takes only 26% as much energy as that from iron ore. A recycled aluminum can saves 95% of the energy of making a new can. Steel and aluminum can be recycled indefinitely (provided impurities are kept to a minimum). Recycled plastic uses only 20% of the energy, and recycled paper uses only 64% as much energy and far fewer chemicals for processing (Brown 2009, p.98).
Conventional product designs have limited reusability, and are called cradle to grave products (AKA Take, Make, Waste or Linear Economy). Product systems need to be designed as nature-mimicking to support reuse in regenerative products and services much like nature's larger system where all materials are nutrients in nature's processes. McDonough and Braungart conclude that waste and pollution need to be avoided entirely and everything we own should be recycled, remade, or buried in the ground to compost. They call for waste-free closed-loop life-cycles that recycles outputs and byproducts of one process as inputs for another such that "Waste = Food" in efficient manufacturing practices. The C2C protocol is a voluntary sustainable product certification that guarantees products are high-performing, efficient, and harmless to nature and human body balances.
See also:
Further Sources:
CAPE = Create Anywhere Publish Everywhere
Create Anywhere Publish Everywhere is software, service, and philosophy. The way the contemporary web works increasingly focuses on linking together disparate and specialized services; not providing a single website with all solutions hardwired directly into the site proper. Create Anywhere Publish Everywhere accepts and embraces this new ideology. Create Anywhere Publish Everywhere uses standard formatting, hardware, software, services, and server technologies. However, the way in which these things are combined is often quite novel.
Create Anywhere Publish Everywhere is a service for connecting your services. Create Anywhere Publish Everywhere desires to provide an interface to control content — photos from Flickr, Instagram, Amazon S3, or Behance; documents from Dropbox, Google Drive, or Github; items from an inventory management system; Facebook Posts, Wordpress posts, content from your existing website — anything accessible via API, anything in an RSS feed, and anything otherwise publishable to the web (or cloud) in a common data format (XML, JSON, TXT, etc.). The goal: make your content work for you in more places.
Create Anywhere Publish Everywhere wants to rethink content creation and management. It is best to approach content creation in as pure a way as possible (meaning semantic, structural, meta-data rich content — not styled content). This makes it easy then for Create Anywhere Publish Everywhere to always map content from one place to another and easily template it for whatever use required.
Started by Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow, and some others.
It is meant to be a way to purposefully let your cultural production be useable out in the world while still maintaining Copyright and control
Related to Public Domain and Free Software and the GPL
From Daniel Eatock
Creative consultancy…
Hour Ideas
Sessions lasts 60 minutes, and take place in my studio in East London, your place of work, or remotely.
Inquire or schedule an appointment
Focused and collaborative, together we talk, draw, write, Google things, make coffee (if needed), walk around the block. We dream of possibilities, pushing each other, encouraging and shaping thought into inspiring ideas.
Ideas are the foundation for all creative endeavours. Ideas are fragile, and during their generation we treat them with care so they can blossom, nothing is shut down. Silly ideas can lead to profound things.
I work with design studios, advertising agencies, innovation consultancies, start ups, and collaborate with creative teams, established creative directors, strategists, planners, non creatives, entrepreneurs, young and old, local and international.
My approach is interdisciplinary, non subject specific and collaborative, combining a practical commercial understanding steaming from graphic design with a reductive conceptual purity of thought from art and teaching. Everything generated in the meeting is yours, and remains confidential.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pUNbM9alEH-sNObCovnPC-m8EvcebBMQWl2wG_Kq5OU/edit#slide=id.p
Omayeli Arenyeka @YellzHeard omayeli.com
Designers/Creatives meeting to use creative practice in new ways to "solve" the climate crisis.
How are they the same/different than Climate Designers?
From wow in the world creativity episode? They rebuild mindys gingerbread mansion…
- openness to new ideas - Divergent thinking: explore lots of possible solutions - Flexibility: if your things don’t work, gotta be cool iterating or totally starting over with what you’ve learned
How can this be part of everything??????
Instead of “right or wrong” you come up with as many ways as possible …
From Dunne and Raby
design that “provides a critique of the prevailing situation through designs that embody alternative social, cultural, technical, or economic values.”
pedagogy of generosity
Jesse Stommel: Ultimately, education has to be about kindness.
There is a “kill the Buddha” sensibility to critical pedagogy.
For Freire’s message to be taken seriously, we cannot uphold Freire as the patriarch of critical pedagogy.
None of us can be the patriarch. None of us can be they-who-are-right-all-the-time.
“When you produce something that has no value on purpose, what you're really creating is a critique.”
— Sam Lavigne, @sam_lavigne
When the founders were asked why they created it, one of them shared stories of how they would be invited to “24-hour hackathons, where the goal would be to end water crisis.”
A lot of time and energy is spent creating solutions that aren’t actually what they claim to be doing. Rather than that, "when you produce something that has no value on purpose, what you're really creating is a critique."
Cultural works: writing, drawing, designing, painting, singing, etc.
The stuff that culture produces.
Outputs must become inputs; there will be no such thing as Waste. Waste from one process will be raw material in another. Nature is cyclical, so our sustainabilitist processes shall be, too.
Manifesto
- Begin with ideas
- Embrace chance
- Celebrate coincidence
- Ad-lib and make things up
- Eliminate superfluous elements
- Subvert expectation
- Make something difficult look easy
- Be first or last
- Believe complex ideas can produce simple things
- Trust the process
- Allow concepts to determine form
- Reduce material and production to their essence
- Sustain the integrity of an idea
- Propose honesty as a solution
Dave Crossland reads Ellen Lupton's Free Font Manifesto, helps inspire his Libre Font interests. Mentions Ellen's aTypi talk in his Dissertation.
Crossland is now in charge of Google Fonts
Mentioned in something I was reading about Jeff Bezos' first "space" flight. https://news.yahoo.com/jeff-bezos-went-space-realize-233347245.html
ESG | Sustainability | Corporate Relations | Impact Investing | Climate Change | Partnerships | Director
A lover and promoter of The Commons
Author of many books, subject of some documentaries, and presenter on all manner of commons and commons-adjacent material.
David Pye, who died in 1993, was an architect, industrial designer, and wood craftsman. For many years he was Professor of Furniture Design at the Royal College of Art, London. He is also the author of Ships, and of The Nature and Art of Workmanship
The DC water mark project visualizes increased flooding and water level rise. The water level rings articulate "oh shit, this place might be underwater pretty frequently given our current projected future!" By signaling this, perhaps we can act accordingly and redirect our present towards a future where that is no longer true. Without _seeing_ your house or office or favorite park area submerged, even symbolically, you cannot envision an alternative. (Curry J. Hackett / Wayside Studio)
Nuclear power: the energy crisis has even die-hard environmentalists reconsidering it. In this first-ever TED debate, Stewart Brand and Mark Z. Jacobson square off over the pros and cons. A discussion that'll make you think – and might even change your mind.
Stewart Brand and Mark Z. Jacobson
a TED debate.
AIGA Design Educators Community
run the AIGA Design Teaching Resources site as well as run their own conferences and sub-events of large AIGA conferences.
MAKE & Surface being two that I have presented at. (oh! and the one way back in Toledo, like in 2010?)
As a grad student we helped run one at MICA, Social Studies Conference
One thing that isn't working well for me with Ruhoh, Wintersmith, etc. is that they mix site content with site generation files to a certain extent. I want to give my clients the simple experience of only editing stuff that they should see — and not having to teach them to ignore things. Content should be separate from templates or any other site-specific information.
So, can the content be meaningfully de-coupled from the site generation in these contexts? That is the main aim of “Create Anywhere Publish Everywhere” (CAPE) right? So does that mean that Ruhoh (or wintersmith or jekyll or any other static site generator) just actually aren't the right tools to be helping with the job I want to do?
Some MFA students last year in the GDMFA program here at MICA build a poster generating machine. It was basically just a website. There were controls via an Arduino box and some code that allowed a viewer to adjust the CSS of a digital “poster” with knobs and buttons. The most important control was a big “print” button. This basically took a screen shot of the display, then saved that capture to a dropbox folder. Another computer, this one hooked up to the printer, had an apple script running that said “when a new image shows up in this dropbox folder, print it.” Using this method the grad students built a pretty seamless system that made posters, printed out images, and also uploaded all of them to a tumblr blog (which then was used to feed images to their “website”). There were a lot of moving pieces required — a lot of behind the scenes, hacked together complexity — but to the user/viewer it looked simple and seamless and easy.
Locally, I could figure this out short term — I could share a folder with a client, put in the files in a directory structure that made sense to their specific needs, and then have it upon syncing trigger an action on my laptop that updated a git repository or similar. But how long would that last? The site could have a git repo of just content, and this content could then get sent around to wherever was desired. This would also be relatively easy to explain what might need to be explained to the clients then, and hide all the complexity they need know nothing about. How does this get ramped up into production though? I can't have every clients’ website just syncing to my personal computer.
It is at least a conceptual start. We'll see where it leads.
Defensive design is like defensive driving. The same way drivers must always be on the lookout for slick roads, reckless drivers, and other dangerous scenarios, site builders must constantly search for trouble spots that cause visitors confusion and frustration. Good site defense can make or break the customer experience.
When I talk about sustainability, I'm talking about these mindsets.
Here are some other Definitions of Sustainability
Sustainability, related to Definitions of Sustainability
Cambridge dictionary: The ability to conitnue at a particular level for a period of time
Brundtland report:
"Our common future"
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
In the 2013 book Flourishing: A Frank Conversation about Sustainability, John Ehrenfeld writes “The key to doing something about sustainability is that you first have to say what it is that you want to sustain.” To define sustainable graphic design we must first define what it is we are sustaining.
If sustainable graphic design is design in service of what we want to sustain, how do you decide what's worth sustaining? (because, if we pick the wrong thing, say we want to sustain the status quo, then that is what sustainable graphic design is — hmmm!?).
Ehrenfeld answers that for us too. He wants to sustain “that all humans and other life should flourish.”
Designer Bruce Mau had a similar goal for the Massive Change project: “Our project is the welfare of all life as a practical objective.” (design for the welfare of all life)
This is what we'll use as our definition of Sustainable Graphic Design for the remainder of the talk: Sustainable graphic design is “graphic design in support of all life flourishing,” or, “graphic design for the welfare of all life.”
In order to meaningfully shape the future, design must challenge and overturn entrenched systems, not simply create new packages for yesterday’s ideas.
If design is treated as a neutral or implicitly good activity, it becomes merely a function of marketing and advertising. For design to be the radical activity that it can and should be, it must incorporate the spirit of hacking.
Podcast.
Fourth season is about Sustainable Design
Sounds like they are also talking to/about Creatives for Climate
https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/09.5-get-defensive
No matter how carefully you design your app, no matter how much testing you do, customers will still encounter problems. So how do you handle these inevitable breakdowns? With defensive design.
Remember: Your app may work great 90% of the time. But if you abandon customers in their time of need, they’re unlikely to forget it.
From Modes of Criticism 4: Radical Pedagogy
Evaluating design by solely looking at products means that the inherently messy processes of designing remain concealed.
Mention of Agonism: A pluralistic democratic order where the the opponent is not considered an enemy to be destroyed, but an adversary whose existence is legitimate and must be tolerated. Chantal Mouffe (pg67 ¶2 L4)
Design has helped to change the world (for better or worse) in gigantic, important ways. Whatever happens next, the world will not be like it is today!
Design has to have a solution.
If designing is problem solving, then design has to have a solution?
I said this one time, and I believe it — we do need to teach everyone the basics of designing!
Most graphic design solutions are relative: Ten graphic designers given the same request will come up with ten different solutions. Some might be “better” than others, but if the designers are sufficiently skilled, they will all be workable, usable solutions. Let’s presume this is a logo for something — maybe a bakery — each designer is likely to pick a different typeface or a different play on a loaf of bread or oven or wheat stalk to use. There isn’t a “right” answer.
I find something frustrating about this.
This makes me feel like what I do is magical, yet meaningless. It’s all relative — a different point of view yields a different outcome, yet we have no “speed of light” against which to measure or compare aesthetics.
What I see in my mind when I hear a client say they want “simple and professional” solutions is likely to be different than that of another designer. On the one hand this is great — freedom and individuality really can reign. On another, it proves that most of the job of a designer is subjective and meaningless. Style is an irrelevant concern. If ten different people can come to ten different aesthetic conclusions for a single “problem” that doesn’t seem to me to say “there is definitive evidence that this solution matters…”
I might pick one typeface, my friend Tony another, my friend Kim another, and my friend Amanda yet another. Any of the four could be made into a more than acceptable, simple, professional solution.
This begins to seem to me arbitrary decision. Another 100 typefaces or symbols can be seemingly randomly chosen and still made to work. How does this show that what I do actually matters?
When all choices are arbitrary, then how do you make a choice?
A process I practiced for a while where I designed slide/pages... I would write tidbits, design that, then build on top and add, edit, overwrite as the slides/pages went on... sort of mini visual essays?
from http://www.designersaccord.org/:
The Designers Accord was created in late 2007 and dissolved in 2018. It was conducted in two phases: first as a five-year project to mainstream sustainability in the global creative community, and next as a channel to conduct selective projects.
Formed as a distributed knowledge network of designers, design firms, university art programs, and creative businesses, the Designers Accord has helped advance the conversation around the ethics, practices, and responsibilities of the creative community.
Almost half a million designers from all over the world participated in the Designers Accord. It has been featured in articles, books, exhibitions, tv, radio, and curricula on design, sustainability, and innovation.
Adopters of the Designers Accord commit to five guidelines that provide collective and individual ways to integrate sustainability into design. Our focus is on creating positive impact in the creative community by connecting a broad network throughout the creative community, inspiring and motivating our members to share best practices, bold ideas, and compelling case studies, and enabling new initiatives to grow from the foundation built by the Designers Accord.
The three primary goals of the first five-year project of the Designers Accord were:
- Engaging all members of the creative community in a dialogue about the importance of integrating the principles of sustainability in all practice and production.
- Evolving design education, and supporting ongoing professional development.
- Bringing the power of systems thinking and design thinking to higher-order strategic challenges.
Great podcast.
Provide Resources for designers to take climate action in their work.
I’ve been having this general feeling that I’ve been trying to make my classes too much like a math or science courses in that there has to be all this super technical time for seeing how a tool is used or how a specific kind of effect is achieved. This results in my being in front of the class the whole time just talking and presenting and clicking on the computer. But in a math class we would do that for about an hour 2 or 3 days per week, and then as students we would go back on our own (or in small study groups) and do equations over and over again as homework. Running a 6 hour block of all technical demos is so much work for me, isn’t too engaging for the students, and doesn’t easily provide ways to do it over again as “homework.”
So instead I’ve been trying more of studio approach like what I remember from painting and drawing classes. Basically, how quickly can I show the general idea, and then how quickly can the students get into playing around with the technique or idea in a way where they feel comfortable continuing to play and experiment and just make — even if we aren’t in the classroom anymore.
My remembrance of my painting courses was that the point was mainly just to practice painting. We’d start with 10–20 minutes of slides and maybe some technique (like this is what an underpainting is), and then we spent all of class the next couple weeks working on some painting that used that technique (probably with another 10 or 20 minute presentation or demo each class that still related to whatever we were doing). Practicing Painting — that made sense — how does a class where practicing designing happens work? the same way? Can you practice designing agnostic of techniques or tools? And, how are the demos and lectures kept short?
If I didn’t “get” one painting technique it didn’t mean that come the next week or next technique I couldn’t move on — I just kept practicing (and maybe I just didn’t like a couple of my paintings too much). The goal wasn’t to build a portfolio, but to build skill and confidence that I could paint whatever and however I wanted after painting class was over. That’s how assignments worked too — paint what you like for the next 3 weeks, the constraint being that you must use underpainting as your process; and then the next assignment is a new technique or new process, but the content is still all yours to decide. Drawing and Photo classes I took I remember operating in similar ways.
These were amorphous, blobby classes where concrete skills were learned, but not necessarily “taught” as the focus. It was craft based, and one had to really practice that craft. Conceptually everything was pretty much open, there were just a handful of constraints that ended up providing the “teaching.” Things would sometimes build upon each other, but sometimes would seem totally disjointed. The goal was presenting as many directions as was possible in a semester.
Alternately, the math and physics classes I took were totally linear and constrained — you had to get what happened on class day A to do what happens next on class day B, and then C, and then D, etc. If you missed something or were confused by something week 1 and never figured it out, you were more than likely going to be totally out of luck come the next test, the final, or the next semester.
You had get calc 1 to move onto calc 2; You had to get linear algebra to get field vectors; what you learned in electronics and electro-magnetism 1 directly led into electronics and electro-magnetism 2 — down to what chapter of a textbook you left off on and started back up from the next term.
Design teaching — especially today with so many technological aspects — really feels like it is living in this weird overlap between these two worlds. Typography and gestalt are still more or less the same, there are just so many new places for them to be considered, and so many new ways for forms to be made into, digitally and physically.
How do we keep a semblance of strict order and hierarchy to what needs to be learned — I mean we have Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3 — this seems like it should relate to some “linear” progression where each level is more complex. But when I hear what people do in their sections of these things there doesn’t always seems to be coherence, and there is also often a different idea as to what complex or simple typographic skills even are. The same with GD1, 2, 3, & 4, what is the progression in these classes? conceptual? technical? Perhaps thinking of “design at MICA” as some sort of Vector with a magnitude and direction — how do type 1,2,3 and then GD1, 2, 3, & 4 create and add to the vector as a whole?
Possible ways forward can veer multiple directions: either everyone has to teach everything in terms of the new technologies — every faculty has to become proficient in everything, and stay up to date with everything; or, no one person teaches a whole section of a class so that each faculty’s specialty or interest is present in each section of every required, foundational, GD track course.
Perhaps part of the solutions is that Type 1 can no longer be 5, 6, or 7 different sections meeting at different times and different days. I remember that my Physics 1 course, which was required for Biology, Chemistry and Physics majors, was in a giant lecture hall with 150 students and 3 faculty doing different sub-pieces of the course over the term. This provided many possibilities for all the students, and there were still required labs on different days where you were able to get small group interaction directly with a faculty as well as structured time to practice what we observed from the lectures and problem solving demonstrations. This seems like a model that could be worth investigating from the point of view of offering many different potentials early on, and might have better correlation to the technicality of design vs. things like drawing or painting.
Also, the calculus I learned in Calc 1+2 was then put directly to use in Physics 1+2. We didn’t go over again how to do the integrals from calculus class in Physics class, just learned equations that put integration to use. Maybe our various design classes offered at similar times are missing this connection? Is what is happening in Type 2 meaningful for GD2 and vice versa?
One last thing at issue that we don’t really talk about much is that the students seem crazy busy. I’ve never had so many students with outside jobs or so concerned with money and time. So many of them have to work jobs outside of class; so many appear to have huge quantities of homework for individual classes — sometimes it seems like certain professors presume the students are only taking their class.
So many of our design projects are really big picture projects. Trying to cram it into a few weeks several times per term even wears me out. Maybe that is a way to make the connections between classes. Shared projects across courses might help to mitigate some of these busy-ness issues and give the students more opportunities not to do less work, but to feel that they aren’t just sprinting each night to get the next day’s homework completed disconnected from everything else they are doing.
Anyway. I’m still trying to figure this out for myself, but in general this thought process has made me feel that my classroom situations are going a little bit more smoothly.
“Designing, if it is to survive as an activity through which we transform our lives, on earth and beyond, has itself to be redesigned, continuously.”
— John Chris Jones, in Designing Designing. London, UK: Architecture Design and Technology Press (Longman Group UK Limited): 1991, pgs. xi–xii.
This is what Creative Commons Licenses do: by giving the specifications, there are already agreed upon rules and participation constraints
This is why Public Domain isn't necessarily good. Copyright with specific Open Source-ness is preferable
A major editorial series about carbon, exploring how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth.
Did you know that you’re a designer whether you’ve studied within a design field or not? As a teacher, nurse, politician, graphic designer, etc., your “designs” (also known as plans or decisions) impact others. How can we make sure that you’re designing inclusive and equitable outcomes for all - no matter how big or small the decision?
Designer, Modernist.
Mythological scale important industrial designer. German. Visionary at Braun who helped bring simple modernism to everyday products. The way many objects look and work today is mostly due to his and his team's work from the 60s through the 80s…
Author of Ten Principles for Good Design
Embrace diversity: it makes life more interesting. Nature has no overarching solution. We should stop looking for one-size-fits all solutions. The only universal shall be Sustainability. People, cultures and localities are all different, requiring different solutions.
Shit – is there a way to get these images in here? on here? keep them in the repo? should they just be in dropbox and I link them in that way?

Do it together: Is this a thing people say instead of Do it Yourself?
What does this mean exactly? Social Design? collaboration? knowing that you can't know or do everything?
We design experiences at the intersection of digital and physical space that require a command of the big picture and attention to craft.
Dome is an experience design studio that gathers designers, technologists, and strategists to solve unusual problems.
Founded in 2014 in Brooklyn, New York, by Lynn Kiang & Katie Lee, Dome has successfully built teams that traverse multiple disciplines and mediums to answer complex projects with original solutions. We believe that every project we take on—large or small—is big, and that its impact has everything to do with how it's done and the people behind it.
Dome is certified as a Minority Women-Owned Business Enterprise (M/WBE) in New York City and State.
Don't be a duplicator, be a creator!?
All around computer programming legend.
Believes that no one person should "own" computer code... Need to find this actual reference/statement??? But something about it being a gift from god.
Drawing carbon dioxide down out of the atmosphere. Draw down carbon dioxide and get it into carbon sinks
Alternative to drawdown
Drawing carbon dioxide down out of the atmosphere. Draw down carbon dioxide and get it into carbon sinks
from Project Drawdown:
Drawdown is defined as the moment when atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations stop climbing, and start to steadily decline, thereby stopping future climate change.
Making the CO2 ppm LESS instead of MORE
should this be draw down as two words? or just one word?
"There is nothing like a dream to create the future. Utopia to-day, flesh and blood tomorrow." —Victor Hugo
???
A cathedral was built to withstand the rigors of the temporal; a water bottle is not — it should be designed to disappear. Each design decision in material and use should make the choice between “durable or ephemeral.”
From Another's Sustainabilitist Principles / https://sustainabilitist.com/framework/#principles
Sustainable practices can last a long time, sometimes even up to perpetuity without collapsing.
Example: Use of 100% ceramic cookware
An experimental, expressive graphic exploration that responds to the source material: Drawdown.org
Two posters that create a dialogue about your topic and that challenge your audience to think critically.
What all of this means of course is up to you: the size, grid, etc. should all make sense based on your approach... how can you "make meaning" through selecting these design elements – not just through your text/image choices?
Edward Osborne Wilson, Naturalist and Biologist and Writer and Environmental advocate. One of the main leaders of the Half Earth project.
Our home world. Our mother. We must protect it.
Also, the ground beneath us.
Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. In 2021, it fell on July 29.
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed. – Mahatma Gandhi
It is important to recognize that that eclecticism was already a reaction to the hegemony of the photographic, typographic modernism established by the fifties generation of designers, such as Sutnar, Beall, Rand, Burtin, and Golden.10
Are these different?
from Murray Bookchin, Utopia, not futurism: Why doing the impossible is the most rational thing we can do
Ecovention was a term invented by Amy Lipton and Sue Spaid in 1999 to refer to an ecological art intervention in environmental degradation. The Ecovention movement in art is associated with land art, earthworks, and environmental art, and landscape architecture, but remains its own distinct category. Many ecoventions bear tendencies similar to public works projects such as sewage and waste-water treatment plants, public gardens, landfills, mines, and sustainable building projects.
Also referred to as a Food Forest. The idea that a forest can be cared for in away that both protects biodiversity AND provides food. An important aspect of Permaculture.
Plugin for helping autocomplete links and such
For our sustainabilitist ideals’ acceptance, they must first be presented and understood by the populous. Presenting the possibility of change brings us one step closer to inciting said change. Easy, understandable ways are best—especially those avoiding condescension.
Consultant providing sustainability related advice for designed objects
Wealthy “elegance” abounds, but true Elegance appears when simplicity and craft are used to solve everyday problems. Sustainabilitists desire ease and grace in all situations.
The belief, among relatively fortunate and influential people, that what those people find convenient or attractive is good for the society as a whole. Once you learn to recognize this simple mistake, you see it everywhere. It is perhaps the single most comprehensive barrier to prosperous, just, and liberating cities.
In 2006 Ellen Lupton presented a talk at aTypi called Univers Strikes Back. The conclusion of this lecture was summed up in her Free Font Manifesto: What if every … (copy over text, maybe just use her image as the slide here?)
How things come out themselves from the rest of the structures/systems around them?
The harder we tighten things down, the less room there is for a creative, emergent solution.
—Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmers
The universe moves towards chaos. This is something we should embrace. Design seeks order, and the order of the universe is a controlled degradation.
One of my favorite designers, period.
He made furniture, objects, books, posters, art, and wonderful ideas.
Autoprogettazione is a wonderful DIY/Design Commons project.
A cathedral was built to withstand the rigors of the temporal; a water bottle is not — it should be designed to disappear. Each design decision in material and use should make the choice between “durable or ephemeral.”
From Another's Sustainabilitist Principles / https://sustainabilitist.com/framework/#principles
Sustainable practices can last a long time, sometimes even up to perpetuity without collapsing.
Example: Use of 100% ceramic cookware
If you can't afford your "rent" for the tools, you get evicted from the design industry...
With Henry Becker
Designer that only uses F/LOS — collaborator with Loraine Furter. Open Source Publishing participant
The best designers and the best programmers aren’t the ones with the best skills, or the nimblest fingers, or the ones who can rock and roll with Photoshop or their environment of choice, they are the ones that can determine what just doesn’t matter. That’s where the real gains are made.
Most of the time you spend is wasted on things that just don’t matter. If you can cut out the work and thinking that just don’t matter, you’ll achieve productivity you’ve never imagined.
University of South Florida Educational Technology Clearinghouse
Clipart free for academic use. Mostly taken from scans of old public domain books in the USF library?
Documentary trying to capture how designers might bring their practices to more ethically influenced places!?
is this just the new form of green washing?
Worrying About Your Carbon Footprint Is Exactly What Big Oil Wants You to Do
Random sentences from R. Buckminster Fuller's 42-hour lecture entitled: Everything I Know.
42 hour lecture by R. Buckminster Fuller
This holds mythological status.
Copy, Transform, Combine, re-share
The basic elements of creativity.
Something I tend to say alot. This is important to understand for the greater, high level consideration of sustainability. Understanding that all energy is finite, that matter transmutes back and forth from energy, that a choice isn't just limited to the small scope in front of you, that we are all passengers on Spaceship Earth
This also is related to The Triple Bottom Line — It's sort of an addendum philosophy to bring that into better focus. Spaceship Earth, Nature, contains everything! Our economy would not exist without society; our society cannot exist without nature. The economy is a construct of society, society is a construct of nature… What's the term in physics? emergent? Nature is fundamental – society and economy are emergent from nature... In this way, any economic choice IS a societal choice; and is also an environmental choice.
Related:

Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.
attributed to Albert Einstein
Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses, and Abandoned Lots was a book I worked on with my friend and curator Sue Spaid, for the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, OH. Green Acres featured artists using farming as their art practice.
The goal: make the resultant book "sustainable." These were sustainability focused artists, how could I represent their ecological inventiveness in a printed book? The things that made the production of this book "sustainable" were that it was printed on demand, and used recycled, unbleached paper.
Visually, the book's design was meant to be _critical_; the juxtaposition of small art farm graphics vs. giant commercial farm references via a constrained square grid and the aerial commercial farmland photography. (» Critical Design)
While the book intends to say something different, it conforms to common standards of "good" modernist layout. Other than a minor production method improvement, it's the same … ! Is it Sustainable Graphic Design?
This is an interim piece for the MICA graduate admissions office. Visually the goal was to convey the diversity of graduate programs, as well as some of the current chaos of our present. Different graduate directors were trying to convey the values of their programs, could the visuals contribute to that. AND, there was an ask for the piece to embrace "sustainability."
So, the design decisions are all spurred by those constraints. Free, open, accessible culture is an important value of mine, and that makes its way into this via the imagery selected and the open source fonts. This also gave me ways to find "art historically" relevant images, and repurpose them to my meaning making.
The printing solution was designed to minimize printing waste — the front and back of this "poster" are printed all as one plate, so the press sheet goes through the press once, then is flipped over, and goes through the press again, voila. This means front and back of the pages were able to all be printed with one plate per color instead of two or more… All of these "values" intermingled here together, do they add up to a sustainable design? a beautiful design?
Basically, you run the exhaust off a fossil fuel power plant into a greenhouse. The CO2 is then turned into growing things. Each season part of grown material is turned into BioChar to fertilize the greenhouse and is then part of a carbon sequestering plan?
What else can you use the outputs for? This is a winding down fossil fuels plan, not a permanent plan — though maybe in a few cases where you can't remove a methane plant or something because we need to use up the methane somehow from a landfill or animal waste facility?
Experience TiddlyWiki Fluency: Creating a Reading List
Amazing video tutorial by Soren Bjornstad
The process required to make any of these Create Anywhere Publish Everywhere ideas “work” rely on a person being proficient over a wide array of technical skills. These experiments have been about building new tools and connecting disparate esoteric tools, not just about using existing standard equipment. This means that as a solution, CAPE is not yet completely viable for everyday use…
However, The idea is sound. But, in its current form it either needs a user with wide skill sets, or a team of people to make things come together. The team is probably the most sensible way to think about using CAPE. As a design department we have all the people to form a “team” allowing the kinds of skills crossover.
Create Anywhere, Publish Everywhere can also be a metaphor for how our design department can grow and evolve. One of CAPE's aims is at platform agnosticism.
The purer the content, the less reliant on a specific tool, technology or piece of software the content is to be distributed. The trick is figuring out the formats that allow for maximum interoperability and future-proofness. Right now that appears to be simple image formats (like jpg), plaintext, and then a variety of coding formats — html, xml, json, and yaml. With content in mostly these kinds of formats it can easily be sent to wherever it is desired, as well as easily reformatted for other languages/formats, or reprocessed for new uses.
CAPE respects specialization. It respects uniqueness. While the goal is content purity, the content can start anywhere. As long as you have people or tools that understand how to convert from one format to another, the content can be created in whatever tool you like. The purer the tools however, the better. InDesign in and of itself isn't the pure. Neither is Word. However, Indesign can be made "pure" by using the export to xml feature, once a person has gone through the trouble of tagging properly all the content in the InDesign document. This is not as easily the case for Word. I believe that no one should use Microsoft Word.
Google Docs are problematic too — they just give you too much ability to style and weirdly format things. Too much presentational power, not enough purely structural power. Interestingly, writing in a google spreadsheet yields more usable, “pure” content than writing in a google doc. The reason? Less ability to stylize. Most spreadsheet cells are really only plaintext.
CAPE cares about Data. It cares about content. Formats that care about structure are what are most useful. But un-stylized structure is key. You then need tools that can maintain the structure while allowing you to hook styles onto that structure.
Free/Libre Open Source
Trying to encompass all the ideological/licensing territory that is the open software movement(s) — I think of it as expanded out to culture and society at large (how it relates more generally to cultural production and the history of making...
Also see F/LOSS
This essay takes Free/Libre Open Source (F/LOS) as a lens to rethink design practice and pedagogy. The paper provides an overview of F/LOS concepts, figures, and thinking. The narrative inter-connects these concepts with historical design precedent and outcomes from a new class, “Special Topics in Graphic Design: Open Source.” The essay ends with thoughts for how design practice and pedagogy improve by adopting F/LOS.
We as visual designers are not precluded from accessing the techniques and ideas of F/LOS. Graphic Designers can integrate F/LOS into their practice both pragmatically and conceptually: more and more (and better and better) tools exist from this realm (Github, Inkscape, Nodebox, etc.). F/LOS offers chances for design as a social critique; design that returns to unselfconcious, vernacular roots (open source isn’t new, it is basically the way that human creative endeavors have historically come into existence ); and design that serves more than just stereotypical clients and business needs (or, can serve those needs, but even better (faster and w/ less bugs!)). In choosing F/LOS alternatives in software a designer can say “I (and my tools) have different ethics than you (and your tools).” Designer’s adopting F/LOS critique the status quo. And even simply trying to make things with F/LOSS makes us better designers. Experiencing (or struggling with) new tools reminds that “goodness” in an interface, typeface or other artifact is often based on familiarity — when things do not behave as expected they appear less good, whether or not this is objectively true.
Making with F/LOS tools and ideals has pedagogical implications: all designers become teachers and students. A design file that one can open up and poke around in is useful for anyone to learn from (how’d they organize these layers? what makes that loopity-loop animate?). Since everyone can see the source code information transfer can go back and forth through many different paths, not just from the top down. F/LOS tools are also likely to use open file formats that can be used across a wide variety of other tools and mediums — so you aren’t locked into one program (even if the program’s filetype is specific, the many filetypes are really some type of XML, so you can still “read” the file with a text editor to get what is going on). It’s not just having access to files that is important, deciding to use F/LOSS means you have access to more kinds of tools; more options for making are available. There are F/LOS tools that do not exist in offerings from Adobe or Autodesk (the Spiro spline drawing tool which finds its way into InkScape and FontForge, or generative design tools like NodeBox and Processing). Seeing other kinds of vector drawing options might open space for one to make new things. If you believe that as an educator part of your role is to build on the knowledge of the past to create new knowledge you must adopt F/LOS.
The Special Topics in Graphic Design: Open Source class meandered along over the the term — but always in the direction of becoming more open; more libre. Despite not always being able to be fully libre (Richard Stallman would not have approved all our methods or tools), we did come out at the end of the term with new points of view on what makes a graphic design practice “good.” To the students “goodness” in a design practice now includes being open to sharing one’s work (failures and successes; code, files, etc.). Goodness also means building on works when and where you can (and letting others build and re-use your works). By increasing the variety of tools and techniques at one’s disposal (by utilizing open source tools, even in addition to proprietary ones — students didn’t think we needed to fully abandon our old tools and operating systems to be “libre designers” — one massively increases possibilities for formal output) a design practice can be more good. And, goodness also means operating ethically — attempting to make your designs ethical in the context of the golden rule (do unto others…), or in egalitarian access, or in not enslaving or entrapping an audience to the will of a client or a designer.
So, the next time you go looking fonts, icons, templates, stock illustrations, or frameworks for a design project look for free/libre open source ones. F/LOS offers up not only a pragmatic approach reviving how we have historically created socio-cultural artifacts, but also a critical approach that through utilizing ideologically based software and tools intentionally positions itself in opposition to mainstream modern-techno-capitalism.
This essay takes Free/Libre Open Source (F/LOS) as a lens to rethink design practice and pedagogy. The paper provides an overview of F/LOS concepts, figures, and thinking. The narrative inter-connects these concepts with historical design precedent and outcomes from a new class, “Special Topics in Graphic Design: Open Source.” The essay ends with thoughts for how design practice and pedagogy improve by adopting F/LOS.
Special Topics in Graphic Design: Open Source ran from January to May of 2018 at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). The course asked students to explore F/LOS software and ideologies in producing graphic design. Other than “earnestly experiment with F/LOS tools,” the main projects were working with the MICA library on an identity and print materials, and collaboratively writing, designing, and printing a book that was exemplary of and about our F/LOS exercises and experiments. Each week we discussed how F/LOS’s ideas and technologies might serve the students’ (and the greater design communities) needs better than mainstream offerings.
Three lectures and workshops at MICA inspired the class’ origins. Loraine Furter and Eric Schrijver, members of a collective known as “Open Source Publishing,” ran two workshops: one using public domain resources in one’s design practice, and one customizing open source fonts. David Crossland of Google Fonts visited MICA and demoed new open source variable typefaces that Google and Type Network , collaborated on. Ending his lecture, Crossland explained how he ended up working at Google Fonts in the first place: being a lover and supporter of F/LOS. With Furter and Schrijver’s examples for how design practice might embrace F/LOS, and through casual conversation with Crossland about his libre font and software background, F/LOS ideals and tools felt like good exploratory territory for a graphic design course.
A search for “Open Source Design” online returns The Open Source Design Manifesto by Garth Braithwaite, a designer working on open source projects at Adobe. Braithwaite’s manifesto made a simple starting point in understanding how F/LOS impacts graphic design. The manifesto reads:
I will:
- find opportunities to design in the open
- share my design experiences; both the good and the bad
- find time for meaningful projects
- openly participate in design discussions
- work with other designers by choice
- improve my toolbox
In a 2013 talk called “Designers Can Open Source,” Braithwaite explains actions and behaviors designers might adopt for the “open-ness” the manifesto aims to inspire. The main tenant is to share more: “Sharing process, especially the failures, really helps” and “post as you are working, show how things evolve.” This creates an ecosystem where designers are more collaborative and more open with their neighbors — more unselfconscious — making design knowledge more effectively shared. Taking Braithwaite’s ideas to heart, our class made sharing and communicating a goal. To facilitate this we moved our class’ project files to repositories on Github (Braithwaite mentions Github as a tool for sharing and collaborating for codebases, we tried it for designing). We wanted to earnestly “design in the open.”
Contemporary open source understanding (Braithwaite’ included) comes from Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar. In the essay, Raymond analyzes Linus Torvalds’ (and his distributed hacker crew’s) development of the Linux Kernel. Raymond found magic in Torvald’s “release early, release often” mantra and distributed method of working. Raymond points to the maxim “Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone,” or “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow,” as key to Linus’s (and Linux’s) success. Get as many self-selected, expert users as possible to tinker with a design; then ask those same users to share everything wrong they find. As fixes are made, redistribute updates as fast as possible back to the group. Problem finding and solving is accelerated (duplicate searches end quickly since redistribution of fixes is rapid). This was crucial to Linux’s stability and rapid improvement.
Braithwaite is encouraging designers to adopt the same shared, distributed model in hopes that many skilled eyes will also make light work. , Graphic designers aim to find the best visual solution to a problem, but do we show “buggy” ideas to clients, colleagues, or stake holders as part of our process in such an unselfconcious way? This is done easily within the classroom or in the studio between colleagues: hang work on the walls; pass designs between desks/desktops as they develop; look over each other’s shoulders. It can take place out in the world by using services like Dribbble, Behance, and Github. But, open designing is not about accruing comments like “cool!” or “nice work!” or “wow! what’s that great esoteric typeface!” The goal is real solutions to unsolved problems. Designers and audience members other than ourselves might see things differently, catch things we have missed, or have a solution waiting that we have not found on our own (or have not found yet, thus shortening our solution’s path).
Our Special Topics: Open Source class had moved our project files to Github, and we also decided to utilize Github’s issue queue to aid in communal problem solving — making sure we lent each other our eyes. Issues let a user reveal found problems to the “community” (in this case our class, but in general the maintainer and anyone else interested in a project) and then request help with solution finding. Peers peruse each other’s queues attempting aid by providing thoughts; sharing a tutorial; or downloading, tweaking, and re-publishing a fix. For our class, utilizing issue queues kept us a community beyond the classroom when at our homes or working from separate studios across campus. It was also incredibly complicated! For visual design projects the Github “distributed critique” made it hard to get deeper into each others’ experiments that just superficials; it was easy to provide basic visual feedback — asking a question isn’t hard; theorizing isn’t too much work; throwing up a screen shot or two is easy; a “this is working, that isn’t” is no problem. But, forking someone’s project, opening the files, and trying to make sense of design decisions AND understand the context and content of that direction? That required time that not many ended up undertaking. Our class found what most open source communities have found — a small percentage of the community are actually responsible for the majority of the work; most “members” merely download and attempt to use the software, code, utility, whatever, not actually help problem solve and improve.
The community aspects that Braithwaite and Raymond point to are not all there is to F/LOS — and not all that might interest a Graphic Designer. Torvalds was working on the Linux Kernel to aid in the completing of a larger project: GNU. GNU was created by Richard Stallman as “an operating system that is free software — that is, it respects users’ freedom.” This is where the Free/Libre part of Free/Libre Open Source came from.
Stallman predicated Free software on the following essential freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
A program is free software if it gives users adequately all of these freedoms. Otherwise, it is non free.
Free software defined by Stallman values users, it does not want to enslave a user to the will of a program or the will of that program’s developer. Stallman’s motivation in 1983 was to maintain the share-and-share-alike, vernacular-like model computer programmers were accustomed to where all are able to build upon existing works. Stallman saw this under attack (most accounts claim that “free software” was birthed when Xerox asked a peer programmer not to share a printer’s source code with Stallman). He was also motivated by being a good citizen.
“I consider that the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way.” — Richard Stallman
Braithwaite nor Raymond deal with any ethical points in their discussions or analysis of open source. Neither take point of view as to why making should be done this way other than that “open design” arrives at better designs while saving resources. But “better” in that context is about less bugs and faster improvements, not “better” morals. Corporate culture has embraced the “open source” part of F/LOS, , what about the Stallman-esque Free/Libre piece, does that have implications for designing?
In “Designer as Author” Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby propose that designers “develop a parallel design activity that questions and challenges industrial agendas.” This is design that is in opposition to mainstream culture. Stallman’s ideals play wonderfully with this “critical design” perspective — Stallman is promoting critical software. Free Software challenges proprietary software’s agendas. Designers fully embracing “free-ness” in their software end up precluding themselves from the normal range of design tools, but open themselves to new territory better representing socially conscious and sustainability related content (the ideology of respecting a user [an audience] matches nicely with a socially aware design practice). Switching one’s software in this context is a critical act.
Students in Special Topics: Open Source formulating practices around “design is political” or “design is ideological” found Stallman’s position more valuable than the pure pragmatics of Braithwaite’s “share more.” Using collective making to more rapidly come to a solution was not the important bit from F/LOS — the good citizen-ship was! That tools might now reflect one’s ethics was a valuable discovery. But, somewhat ironically, in adopting full libre practices for ideological reasons, collaboration can be more difficult. A peer’s set of tools may no longer be your tools. So, though F/LOS tools might not always be possible, protecting an audience member’s freedom is. Stallman’s golden rule still holds true: “… The Golden Rule requires that if I like a program [design] I must share it with other people who like it.”
The Special Topics: Open Source class collaborated with MICA’s library on new print and signage materials. The library thinks of itself as an open entity within the school — the ideals of Stallman’s and F/LOS at large are mirrored by the Library’s director and staff (free-ness of information, open access, collaboration, etc.). There were limitations to how “free” we could be — we had to create files with Adobe Creative Cloud (it is a standard toolset for MICA offices), and we had to use the institution’s fonts. Though software and fonts were non-free, students did still go to great lengths to find ways of using F/LOS content and the share-and-share alike mentalities. One student utilized the MICA library’s personal archives for imagery. These are often works in the public domain, with no known copyright holder, or that the MICA Library directly holds the rights to. Reusing and remixing in the vernacular/open source vein is now a possibility for future library works. The class used issue queues to help divide and assign work; and the library staff were able to have access to the repositories to provide some input. The MICA brand guidelines themselves can be made more powerful if following institutional “open sourcing” is the goal. Instead of blindly following brand guides, find holes and places for improvement. There was one “bug” that the class asked the MICA communications department about for the library materials: what default set of icons should MICA school projects use? The communications team didn’t have an answer, and since then have been exploring what the best way to solve a branded icon set institutionally with some of our work as starting point.
We as visual designers are not precluded from accessing the techniques and ideas of F/LOS. Graphic Designers can integrate F/LOS into their practice both pragmatically and conceptually: more and more (and better and better) tools exist from this realm (Github, Inkscape, Nodebox, etc.). F/LOS offers chances for design as a social critique; design that returns to unselfconcious, vernacular roots (open source isn’t new, it is basically the way that human creative endeavors have historically come into existence ); and design that serves more than just stereotypical clients and business needs (or, can serve those needs, but even better (faster and w/ less bugs!)). In choosing F/LOS alternatives in software a designer can say “I (and my tools) have different ethics than you (and your tools).” Designer’s adopting F/LOS critique the status quo. And even simply trying to make things with F/LOSS makes us better designers. Experiencing (or struggling with) new tools reminds that “goodness” in an interface, typeface or other artifact is often based on familiarity — when things do not behave as expected they appear less good, whether or not this is objectively true.
Making with F/LOS tools and ideals has pedagogical implications: all designers become teachers and students. A design file that one can open up and poke around in is useful for anyone to learn from (how’d they organize these layers? what makes that loopity-loop animate?). Since everyone can see the source code information transfer can go back and forth through many different paths, not just from the top down. F/LOS tools are also likely to use open file formats that can be used across a wide variety of other tools and mediums — so you aren’t locked into one program (even if the program’s filetype is specific, the many filetypes are really some type of XML, so you can still “read” the file with a text editor to get what is going on). It’s not just having access to files that is important, deciding to use F/LOSS means you have access to more kinds of tools; more options for making are available. There are F/LOS tools that do not exist in offerings from Adobe or Autodesk (the Spiro spline drawing tool which finds its way into InkScape and FontForge, or generative design tools like NodeBox and Processing). Seeing other kinds of vector drawing options might open space for one to make new things. If you believe that as an educator part of your role is to build on the knowledge of the past to create new knowledge you must adopt F/LOS.
The Special Topics in Graphic Design: Open Source class meandered along over the the term — but always in the direction of becoming more open; more libre. Despite not always being able to be fully libre (Richard Stallman would not have approved all our methods or tools), we did come out at the end of the term with new points of view on what makes a graphic design practice “good.” To the students “goodness” in a design practice now includes being open to sharing one’s work (failures and successes; code, files, etc.). Goodness also means building on works when and where you can (and letting others build and re-use your works). By increasing the variety of tools and techniques at one’s disposal (by utilizing open source tools, even in addition to proprietary ones — students didn’t think we needed to fully abandon our old tools and operating systems to be “libre designers” — one massively increases possibilities for formal output) a design practice can be more good. And, goodness also means operating ethically — attempting to make your designs ethical in the context of the golden rule (do unto others…), or in egalitarian access, or in not enslaving or entrapping an audience to the will of a client or a designer.
So, the next time you go looking fonts, icons, templates, stock illustrations, or frameworks for a design project look for free/libre open source ones. F/LOS offers up not only a pragmatic approach reviving how we have historically created socio-cultural artifacts, but also a critical approach that through utilizing ideologically based software and tools intentionally positions itself in opposition to mainstream modern-techno-capitalism.
What can I offer people easily?
Whats a good order of things?
Okay, so what is F/LOS? Why are these issues important? what does this have to do with Capitalism and Sustainability and Graphic Design and Pedagogy and whatever else? Why should we care about this? what are the pragmatics?
A basic framework for a workshop:
Okay, so as I do the workshop, in new and more and different places... do we fork the old code? does everyone have to have a gitlab or github account or something? Is that another way the designing is open? people all over, different classes, different students, are all adding to and sharing an ever growing design resource manual? Libre Designing!?
Also, depending on how much time a class or department wants to give a lecture/workshop, well, we could edit design information on wikipedia? or just gather a set of images from flickr commons and then make some posters; or just use typefaces others have already collected to make some font specimens, it doesn't have to be everything or a book every time the workshop happens?
For whatever "readings" get chosen — make sure they are all Open — they need to be public domain or CC or something where they are free to copy, manipulate, redistribute, etc.
F/LOS Design... How to run a design practice with just Free/Libre Open Source tools, computers, software, etc.
Related:
Field of Vision is a filmmaker-driven documentary unit that commissions, creates and supports original short-form and feature-length nonfiction films and episodic series about developing and ongoing stories around the globe.
Our mission is to support work that uses innovative and artistic ways to explore contemporary global issues through a cinematic lens, and to push the boundaries of nonfiction storytelling.
From the site: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/circular-economy/first-circular-economy-action-plan_en
The 54 actions of the EU’s first circular action plan have been delivered. The EU’s transition to a circular economy is now guided by the new circular economy action plan.
In 2015, the European Commission adopted its first circular economy action plan. It included measures to help stimulate Europe's transition towards a circular economy, boost global competitiveness, foster sustainable economic growth and generate new jobs.
The action plan established concrete and ambitious actions, with measures covering the whole life cycle: from production and consumption to waste management and the market for secondary raw materials and a revised legislative proposal on waste.
On 4 March 2019, the European Commission adopted a comprehensive report on the implementation of the action plan. The report presents the main achievements and sketches out future challenges to shaping our economy and paving the way towards a climate-neutral, circular economy where pressure on natural and freshwater resources as well as ecosystems is minimised.
These five Life Essentials are defined by Steven van der Kruit, former trend research leader at Firmenich, Geneva, as:
from Design Futures and Education for Life Essentials, by Marco Bevolo
There will be no perfect approach—the future will unfold in unpredictable ways. We must allow adaptive reuse and a willingness to change direction or tactics to fit circumstances.
The ability to change is key. Having everything fixed makes it tough to change. Injecting scope flexibility will introduce options based on your real experience building the product. Flexibility is your friend.
Our recommendation: Scope down. It’s better to make half a product than a half-assed product (more on this later).
https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/02.4-fix-time-and-budget-flex-scope

Artificially manufactured scarcity
An important aspect of Techno-modern capitalism
Foregoing clean lines and Swiss grids, “Does It Make Sense?” is populated with floating low-res video images and bitmapped type. In response to the piece’s titular question, April Greiman has been known to paraphrase Wittgenstein: “It makes sense if you give it sense.” The Modernists were shook.
Form is a subset of content, content is a subset of context … but they also push and pull on each other: Form CAN BECOME a context; Form CAN BECOME content.
In the end, I wish this to mean that CONTEXT is the ultimate arbiter of content and form. A given context, analyzed correctly, has content and form unique and correct to it that MAY NOT fit another context. Thus, there is no universal style or communicative tool. There are just the right things for a particular time, space, culture, etc.
Related: Notes on the Synthesis of Form
“If the audience has changed and the production has changed, and the messages might change, wouldn’t common sense suggest that the notion of form might evolve too?”12
The man who helped usher in the environmental movement in the 1960s and '70s has been rethinking his positions on cities, nuclear power, genetic modification and geo-engineering. This talk at the US State Department is a foretaste of his major new book, sure to provoke widespread debate.
Jørgen Leth's four steps for his artistic practice:
found in The Joy of Missing Out (JOMO) P83 ¶1 L16
What is Free Culture?
When I am talking about free culture, I am talking about a) cultural production — producing the elements that help define and articulate and spread culture; and b) cultural production that is "free" for anyone to use, build upon, etc. This is free as in freedom culture.
The history of cultural works is building upon, remixing, copying, reusing, repurposing… it is cultural stuff that everyone owns... (Do I need to cite something here? reference something? is my conjecture fine?)
In our present we find ourselves increasingly constrained. Both from how we are allowed to use other's outputs, as well as in the tools and delivery mechanisms themselves — increasingly all of this is less free, more closed, more proprietary, more controlled.
±±±±±±±±±±±±±
Reference searches:
A small but growing number of designers and institutions are creating typefaces for the public domain. These designers are participating in the broader open source and copyleft movements, which seek to stimulate worldwide creativity via a collective information commons.
This web page provides information and airs ideas about the concept of free fonts. Its annotated appearance reflects my conversations with type designers about the danger and necessity of free fonts.
The community aspects that Braithwaite and Raymond point to are not all there is to F/LOS — and not all that might interest a Graphic Designer. Torvalds was working on the Linux Kernel to aid in the completing of a larger project: GNU. GNU was created by Richard Stallman as “an operating system that is free software — that is, it respects users’ freedom.” This is where the Free/Libre part of Free/Libre Open Source came from.
Stallman predicated Free software on the following essential freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
A program is free software if it gives users adequately all of these freedoms. Otherwise, it is non free.
Free software defined by Stallman values users, it does not want to enslave a user to the will of a program or the will of that program’s developer. Stallman’s motivation in 1983 was to maintain the share-and-share-alike, vernacular-like model computer programmers were accustomed to where all are able to build upon existing works. Stallman saw this under attack (most accounts claim that “free software” was birthed when Xerox asked a peer programmer not to share a printer’s source code with Stallman). He was also motivated by being a good citizen.
“I consider that the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way.” — Richard Stallman
Braithwaite nor Raymond deal with any ethical points in their discussions or analysis of open source. Neither take point of view as to why making should be done this way other than that “open design” arrives at better designs while saving resources. But “better” in that context is about less bugs and faster improvements, not “better” morals. Corporate culture has embraced the “open source” part of F/LOS, , what about the Stallman-esque Free/Libre piece, does that have implications for designing?
In “Designer as Author” Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby propose that designers “develop a parallel design activity that questions and challenges industrial agendas.” This is design that is in opposition to mainstream culture. Stallman’s ideals play wonderfully with this “critical design” perspective — Stallman is promoting critical software. Free Software challenges proprietary software’s agendas. Designers fully embracing “free-ness” in their software end up precluding themselves from the normal range of design tools, but open themselves to new territory better representing socially conscious and sustainability related content (the ideology of respecting a user [an audience] matches nicely with a socially aware design practice). Switching one’s software in this context is a critical act.
Students in Special Topics: Open Source formulating practices around “design is political” or “design is ideological” found Stallman’s position more valuable than the pure pragmatics of Braithwaite’s “share more.” Using collective making to more rapidly come to a solution was not the important bit from F/LOS — the good citizen-ship was! That tools might now reflect one’s ethics was a valuable discovery. But, somewhat ironically, in adopting full libre practices for ideological reasons, collaboration can be more difficult. A peer’s set of tools may no longer be your tools. So, though F/LOS tools might not always be possible, protecting an audience member’s freedom is. Stallman’s golden rule still holds true: “… The Golden Rule requires that if I like a program [design] I must share it with other people who like it.”
The Special Topics: Open Source class collaborated with MICA’s library on new print and signage materials. The library thinks of itself as an open entity within the school — the ideals of Stallman’s and F/LOS at large are mirrored by the Library’s director and staff (free-ness of information, open access, collaboration, etc.). There were limitations to how “free” we could be — we had to create files with Adobe Creative Cloud (it is a standard toolset for MICA offices), and we had to use the institution’s fonts. Though software and fonts were non-free, students did still go to great lengths to find ways of using F/LOS content and the share-and-share alike mentalities. One student utilized the MICA library’s personal archives for imagery. These are often works in the public domain, with no known copyright holder, or that the MICA Library directly holds the rights to. Reusing and remixing in the vernacular/open source vein is now a possibility for future library works. The class used issue queues to help divide and assign work; and the library staff were able to have access to the repositories to provide some input. The MICA brand guidelines themselves can be made more powerful if following institutional “open sourcing” is the goal. Instead of blindly following brand guides, find holes and places for improvement. There was one “bug” that the class asked the MICA communications department about for the library materials: what default set of icons should MICA school projects use? The communications team didn’t have an answer, and since then have been exploring what the best way to solve a branded icon set institutionally with some of our work as starting point.
Richard Stallman's original starting place for all that is now GNU, F/LOS, etc.
Software that follows The Four Freedoms.
“Open Source” Teaching new users about freedom became more difficult in 1998, when a part of the community decided to stop using the term “free software” and say “open source software” instead.
Some who favored this term aimed to avoid the confusion of “free” with “gratis”—a valid goal. Others, however, aimed to set aside the spirit of principle that had motivated the free software movement and the GNU Project, and to appeal instead to executives and business users, many of whom hold an ideology that places profit above freedom, above community, above principle. Thus, the rhetoric of “open source” focuses on the potential to make high-quality, powerful software, but shuns the ideas of freedom, community, and principle.
Paper making project at Univeristy of Illionois Champaign Urbana by Eric Benson
They make paper from prairie grass and agricultural waste
InDesign, Word, and various other all-in-one document/software types make it is hard to connect or anchor an addendum piece of content to the flow without actively inserting it somehow. Distinctions between an “introduction” paragraph and a regular paragraph become fuzzy. Paragraph styles for both might be the same in terms of aesthetics, however, semantically, or meta-data-wise, there might be need/desire for a difference.
Let us say you have a designed book. All the editing, etc. for printing has already happened. However, now that content is locked into that usability space.
This is no different than using InDesign for writing. I think designers might often do this — it isn’t uncommon to directly design and write your syllabus in InDesign. Or perhaps, project sheets, etc.
Also, in terms of hierarchy within a syllabus, there are things like headlines, subheads, paragraphs, etc. that will all get paragraph stylings or perhaps character styles (to use InDesign vernacular). However, this isn’t quite as good as say styling with CSS which gives you different sorts of meta-data control, or the ability to say that the paragraph tags of class “lecture” do something different than paragraph tags of class “project” — though they are still paragraph tags… hmmm… I guess you can do this by just using different paragraph styles — but it isn't quite as intrinsically simple in inDesign or word as it is in CSS.
If you want paragraphs to look the same, but be different, or tagged, in terms of their different content, paragraph styles or similar aren’t really enough to do that…
Coding languages are much better equipped to handle things like this. Variables, Fields, File-types, etc.
Visual styling is concerned with hierarchy. Content organizing is concerned with structure.
There is visual hierarchy and structural hierarchy. We want to worry the most about the structural hierarchy. This is what will remain the same across all uses. The visual hierarchy we can allow to change as a function of the structural hierarchy and the use
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Create Anywhere, Publish everywhere has some key concepts that must be understood.
Create Anywhere: This doesn’t mean with any software, or in any format unfortunately. This “Anywhere” means anything that is capable of outputting semi-structured, little-to-no-formatted text/content. However, there are ways of converting things like word docs, google docs, spreadsheets, etc. into better formatted options. This just takes 1 central repository/program that can pull in all various datas and datatypes and formats, and convert, splice, and format them in friendlier, more universal ways; as well as optimal formats for specific use cases (InDesign likes XML, most web things like JSON right now). Once data is in the central repository — or the CAPE framework — this can be accomplished fairly simply… The content can even then be “generated” to a pure form for future updates, etc. via best practices.
A future possible is something that is in the cone of possibilities, but isn't necessarily what WILL happen.
We create future possibles by showing others alternative ways of thinking, behaving, etc.
This is related to The Futures Cone
see The Futures Cone
from https://thevoroscope.com/2017/02/24/the-futures-cone-use-and-history/
Add/Find: and then this one is my version, w/ help from Devon Halladay – It tries to show the Adjacent Possibles concept.
Designer at Adobe
Has promoted a lot of Open Source Design in his day
Great lectures on open source designing.
It’s ok to do less, skip details, and take shortcuts in your process if it’ll lead to running software faster. Once you’re there, you’ll be rewarded with a significantly more accurate perspective on how to proceed. Stories, wireframes, even html mockups, are just approximations. Running software is real.
https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/06.1-race-to-running-software
Book on the software philosophy of Basecamp...
https://basecamp.com/books/getting-real
Trying to rethink how to do RG stuff using that, at least partially.
A lot of quotes here...
So, Mr. Keedy's The Global Style is NOT what I am meaning by a New Design Commons. Why not?
Magna Carta? for local? why is that good? intentional?
Semiotics -> There must be intentional meaning!
I actually have enjoyed using a pretty plain Debian install on an older macbook air, and a Manjaro install on a lenovo thinkpad and an install of OpenSUSE on an iMac. Fedora and OpenSUSE have been prety easy to get things to work on without having to mess around too much. Manjaro usually works, but its a little more searching around and downloading or correctly enabling the right things.
I did not like Ubuntu very much, it seemed slow and constrained in ways I did not find freeing at all. It felt like worse windows and mac os, but open source.
Related:
We judge graphic design using visual criteria for "formal goodness" or "beauty" from the systems we must be critical of.
The principles of "good" modernist design are so embedded in culture that they are the principles of "good" graphic designing.
— Jerome Harris
Contemporary formal goodness evolved from late 19th through mid-20th centuries western art traditions. The formal concepts of Modernist Capitalism do not so far seem to lead to all life flourishing (it's usually the opposite!).
What new criteria for formal goodness or "beauty" are necessary for Sustainable designs!?
(And, if a modern design is made by modernists, then sustainable design is made by sustainabilitists?)
Amazing idea for how to make new meanings. Add explanations from old AD1 books?
graphic designing is trying to make the complex intelligible; not telling visual lies wherein one presents simple signs as replacements just to make something conform to an aesthetic ideal
to the best way to solve complex problems is with complex thinking
Painting an environmentally friendly picture, without doing anything eco-friendly.
Also see: The Seven Sins of Green Washing
Any gas in the atmosphere that aids in retaining heat energy.
To grok something is to understand something completely, intuitively, to with your every being fully KNOW the thing.
Story on Aeon
Andrew Russell is Dean and Professor in the College of Arts & Sciences at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Utica, New York. He is the author of Open Standards and the Digital Age (2014) and co-editor of Ada's Legacy (2015).
Lee Vinsel is an assistant professor of science and technology studies at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. He is working on the book Taming the American Idol: Cars, Risks, and Regulations.
Great essay on Aeon.co: Half Earth / Half of the Earth’s surface and seas must be dedicated to the conservation of nature, or humanity will have no future
Most of us think we need to “have” a certain thing or set of things (more money, love, time, experience, etc.), so that we can finally “do” something important (pursue our passion, start a business, go on vacation, create a relationship, buy a home, etc.), which will then allow us to “be” what we truly want in life (peaceful, fulfilled, inspired, generous, in love, etc.).
https://mike-robbins.com/be-do-have/
Related to Outcome Based Thinking?
readiness-at-hand vs. presence-at-hand
https://modus.medium.com/the-myth-of-invisible-design-c67d590babe9
A documentary about Henry George, The Single Tax, and the village of Arden Delaware.
Author, Poet, United States-izen
One of the great writers and characters from the 19th century
Kristian Bjørnard - Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist
School of Art, Art History & Design, UNIVERSITY of NEBRASKA–LINCOLN
04/15/2021
Kristian Bjørnard Graphic Design Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist 04/14/2021 — Kristian Bjørnard is a professor of Graphic Design at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He lives in Baltimore, MD with his wife and two children in an old stone house they're trying to make energy efficient. He's made biodiesel, helped his wife run a vegetable farm, and is now converting his family's small yard into an orchard. When he isn't sequestering carbon and free(ing) culture, Kristian designs identities; algorithmic tools; and books, magazines, and digital publications for a variety of clients. Whatever the output, Kristian sees every project as an opportunity to create signs signaling sustainability. Kristian holds an MFA in Graphic Design from MICA and a BA in Studio Art from Kalamazoo College.
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
Contemporary open source understanding (Braithwaite’ included) comes from Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar. In the essay, Raymond analyzes Linus Torvalds’ (and his distributed hacker crew’s) development of the Linux Kernel. Raymond found magic in Torvald’s “release early, release often” mantra and distributed method of working. Raymond points to the maxim “Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone,” or “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow,” as key to Linus’s (and Linux’s) success. Get as many self-selected, expert users as possible to tinker with a design; then ask those same users to share everything wrong they find. As fixes are made, redistribute updates as fast as possible back to the group. Problem finding and solving is accelerated (duplicate searches end quickly since redistribution of fixes is rapid). This was crucial to Linux’s stability and rapid improvement.
Braithwaite is encouraging designers to adopt the same shared, distributed model in hopes that many skilled eyes will also make light work. , Graphic designers aim to find the best visual solution to a problem, but do we show “buggy” ideas to clients, colleagues, or stake holders as part of our process in such an unselfconcious way? This is done easily within the classroom or in the studio between colleagues: hang work on the walls; pass designs between desks/desktops as they develop; look over each other’s shoulders. It can take place out in the world by using services like Dribbble, Behance, and Github. But, open designing is not about accruing comments like “cool!” or “nice work!” or “wow! what’s that great esoteric typeface!” The goal is real solutions to unsolved problems. Designers and audience members other than ourselves might see things differently, catch things we have missed, or have a solution waiting that we have not found on our own (or have not found yet, thus shortening our solution’s path).
Our Special Topics: Open Source class had moved our project files to Github, and we also decided to utilize Github’s issue queue to aid in communal problem solving — making sure we lent each other our eyes. Issues let a user reveal found problems to the “community” (in this case our class, but in general the maintainer and anyone else interested in a project) and then request help with solution finding. Peers peruse each other’s queues attempting aid by providing thoughts; sharing a tutorial; or downloading, tweaking, and re-publishing a fix. For our class, utilizing issue queues kept us a community beyond the classroom when at our homes or working from separate studios across campus. It was also incredibly complicated! For visual design projects the Github “distributed critique” made it hard to get deeper into each others’ experiments that just superficials; it was easy to provide basic visual feedback — asking a question isn’t hard; theorizing isn’t too much work; throwing up a screen shot or two is easy; a “this is working, that isn’t” is no problem. But, forking someone’s project, opening the files, and trying to make sense of design decisions AND understand the context and content of that direction? That required time that not many ended up undertaking. Our class found what most open source communities have found — a small percentage of the community are actually responsible for the majority of the work; most “members” merely download and attempt to use the software, code, utility, whatever, not actually help problem solve and improve.
Whatever your answered is what you should be fighting for as a human being.
Keep the outcome from being dependent on your wellbeing?
Once you have determined where you want to be, you focus on the outcome only so it gives you a direction, and then you invest yourself into the process, you put everything into getting there and if you succeed, wonderful and if you don't still wonderful. now you have a new starting point and you create a new outcome and keep moving on!?
"The good news is it's now clearly cheaper to save the planet than to ruin it," says engineer and investor John Doerr. "The bad news is: we are fast running out of time." In this conversation with climate policy expert Hal Harvey, the two sustainability leaders discuss why humanity has to act globally, at speed and at scale, to meet the staggering challenge of decarbonizing the global economy (which has only ever increased emissions throughout history) – and share helpful examples of promising energy solutions from around the world.
A TED conversation between John Doerr and Hal Harvey
Is this related to why go solar????
Beautiful things ARE sustainable things
Bruce Sterling outlines four criteria for sorting through the objects you own so as to decide what to keep and what to discard as a part of your new, sustainably designed life. (From Sterling's essay The Last Viridian Note)
Categories 1–3 are worth keeping, category 4 is to be discarded.
When de Botton talks about beauty in design and architecture, his “beauty” encompasses Sterling’s top 3 categories.
But, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Sterling found the need to break his list of criteria four separate entities, and not just “beautiful things” and “everything else.” I find a well crafted hammer functional, utilitarian, and beautiful. To another, it might just be functional. The paintings and drawings I find beautiful are what another might find ugly. The things I find sentimental are unique to me. Not everyone has the same idea of what should be sustained as not everyone thinks the same things are beautiful.
Part of FLOSD and The Libre Designer
In Discussion and collaboration with Henry Becker
So you want to liberate your designing?
Explain what liberating design is? What is Free Culture? > Free Culture
Let's walk through some options from the simplest to the most complex.
The Libre Designer is an ideal. If we look at the history of Cultural Production, for the most part that history is “free” — meaning that as cultural ideas are put out into the world, they are then built upon and remixed by those around.
Contemporary design practice is no longer like this — at least not the visual design parts.
Why does this matter!?
If you wish to regain some aspect of "freed cultural production" then there are several ways one can start.
The by far most easy way is to 1. pick image sources that come from the realm of free culture, and 2. pick typefaces that come from the realm of free culture.
So why pick "free" images? well for one, they are usually literally free. This makes it particularly easy to start.
Free images can come from several places. they might be old, and so just be in the public domain. This means anyone can use them for anything they want, build on them, repurpose them, etc.
There are also plenty of ways that images are given over to free cultural use without just by being old enough. Services like Unsplash and Undraw release new images that have open licensing
(Fuck do we need to go through licensing? maybe do this as a foot note, and have a glossary in the back, one part is different licenses)
re listen to who needs artists in a climate crisis podcast... there has got to be something there to revist from a graphic designer perspective!?
make printed book pages with HTML
Artist, professor, sustainabilitist
New genre of designer, can deal with diversity that white default culture can't
Coined by Cheryl D Miller in her April 6 talk at MICA
From Utopia, not futurism: Why doing the impossible is the most rational thing we can do
Double check, but is by Murray Bookchin
by R. Buckminster Fuller and Jerome Agel
Video flip through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FDxeVkAwQ0
I have been going through a lot of old work, old writing, old lectures, just all of my past “work.” I am left asking myself a lot of questions!
Reference:
An Inuit poem contemplates scientific exploration of Greenland
Greenland is the world’s largest island, a sprawling landmass covered by a notoriously receding ice sheet. With a population of just 56,000, it’s also one of the least populated places on Earth. The vast majority of these Greenlanders are Greenlandic Inuit, with roots on the island stretching back centuries. Recent decades, however, have brought a new kind a visitor – climate scientists with complex devices for drilling and prodding the Earth. Setting up temporary camps that tend to leave permanent marks, they aim to peer into the deep past preserved in the ice, hoping that it will offer hints about the climate’s precarious future.
An impressionistic work of nonfiction with science-fiction influences, Utuqaq (‘ice that lasts year after year’) juxtaposes images of a scientific expedition to Greenland’s ice sheet with a poem about the visitors, narrated in Kalaallisut, a variant of Greenlandic Inuit language, by Aviaja Lyberth. As the US-based filmmaker Iva Radivojevic’s otherworldly and often beautiful exploration unfolds, two distinct perspectives on the stark white landscape slowly emerge.
Director: Iva Radivojevic
Website: Field of Vision
An idealistic agenda in design. deplore the obsession with the new for the sake of the new.
This is also related to Utopian Gestures and Sustainable Graphic Design and I said something about this in my Open Source Design course from 2018 too (2019?)
Modernism is out of date.
The context that led to the style of modernism are no longer relevant to our current problems.
If the contexts are different; time and space are changed; the people are different; the world is the stage, not just a broken Europe; then the aesthetic outcomes need to be different too.
“If we are going to interfere in the lives of others, a little due diligence is a minimum requirement.”
— Teju Cole @tejucole
Pictures
Images are edited with Image Editors
Images may have several different FileFormats or FileTypes
Social/Eco news
In conversation with Calvin Hutcheon
Design is situational
Systems related > related to technology and the ability for systems to execute...
where to shape the systems that govern our interactions
there is an important role for design to play in these contexts?
Design work: specifically in the UX sphere, is it that a strategy is made concrete?
open source design is about modules and libraries and icons... but doesn't have a lot of other reach?
is open source design a place for "research"
come up with creative, and different ways of thinking about design out in the world.
deeper human engagement...
how can, through "opening" up designs, can we bring in a more human approach???
how do people move through the world and leverage each other's systems and knowledge are... where are the leverage points? how do we take advantage of them?
how can the "technology" bring people together? do policy people, sociology people, etc. have a way to actually get together WITH designers?
what other knowledge domains do you need to know about and how do you find the people to collaborate with?
lining up people with the things they're good at
organization of labor. how do the people that are useful for specific things at specific times find that to do, and then still have other things
DARPA but for social design?
how do you generate funding for your idea? how can you funnel funding towards the thing you are into with only available tools? how do you organize and route resources where they are needed?
What are the limitations of our environments? what is the use of an institution like MICA? like an art school? like a company like Apple?
what are the goals and motivations in life that you have? is getting a job the important part? what is?
Why would you contirbute money to something that you weren't getting equity in?
Why fund the open source space?
the infrastructure for people to find the people they need and build teams, social events, networking tools
Open Source incubator – people meet and find people of different skill sets.
Open source is a full spectrum thing... how do you make sure business people, lawyers, copy writers, sociologists,
How to design a world in which we rely less on stuff, and more on people.
We're filling up the world with technology and devices, but we've lost sight of an important question: What is this stuff for? What value does it add to our lives? So asks author John Thackara in his new book, In the Bubble: Designing for a Complex World. These are tough questions for the pushers of technology to answer. Our economic system is centered on technology, so it would be no small matter if "tech" ceased to be an end-in-itself in our daily lives. Technology is not going to go away, but the time to discuss the end it will serve is before we deploy it, not after. We need to ask what purpose will be served by the broadband communications, smart materials, wearable computing, and connected appliances that we're unleashing upon the world. We need to ask what impact all this stuff will have on our daily lives. Who will look after it, and how?
In the Bubble is about a world based less on stuff and more on people. Thackara describes a transformation that is taking place now—not in a remote science fiction future; it's not about, as he puts it, "the schlock of the new" but about radical innovation already emerging in daily life. We are regaining respect for what people can do that technology can't. In the Bubble describes services designed to help people carry out daily activities in new ways. Many of these services involve technology—ranging from body implants to wide-bodied jets. But objects and systems play a supporting role in a people-centered world. The design focus is on services, not things. And new principles—above all, lightness—inform the way these services are designed and used. At the heart of In the Bubble is a belief, informed by a wealth of real-world examples, that ethics and responsibility can inform design decisions without impeding social and technical innovation.
This is my first static website with TiddlyWiki!
Trying to improve the "live" version of my new whatever this site is.
020210600 June contains all the main stuff I've been intentionally writing here so far. But there are a lot of other kinds of content and definitions and such that will be showing up here.
this will eventually replace The Sustainabilitist > http://www.thesustainabilitist.com/
using the Ness Labs tutorial to help figure this out. https://nesslabs.com/tiddlywiki-static-website-generator / So I can use https://tiddlywiki.com/static/Generating%2520Static%2520Sites%2520with%2520TiddlyWiki.html as well to help get it working? Is it better to do it as a static site, or keep it dynamic but hide the controls for adding/editing?! I don't know.
I also have been using a lot of Soren Bjornstad's walkthroughs to figure things out.
Now onto July
You don't want inflexible 24/7 Base Load power. This is what Coal Power and Nuclear Power provide, and thus why Nuclear and Coal are Obsolete
Vector drawing tool. Good GNU/Linux design tool. Part of The Libre Designer's toolkit
"showing," is a model of inquiry, where learners are free to ask, explore, experiment. “Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention,” Freire writes, “through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” (53)
Institutions are formed of living bodies. These people's daily decisions determine the outcomes.
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
I think it is possible for humans to interact with the landscape in a way that builds niches for biodiversity AND provides an opportunity to get yields from an agricultural system for our needs.
Passion exists inside of you, it does not exist in your job. If you cannot ignite passion inside of you where you are, then you find that the external world rearranges itself to accomodate you........
There is an alternative. You do not invest in the outcome you invest in the process.
Just checking to see that things are working? I need to style this up a bit better.
When you are on the ground, where you are standing can feel somewhat wild. But if you take a 10000 ft view, it is a pattern, it is designed to be managed... this become apparent. But on the ground for the insects and the birds, it, hopefully feels somewhat like home.
Documentary Film Director
James Auger was among the first designers to question the role of the designer and the impact of design products (Tooth implant, J.Loizeau and J.Auger). He was then professor at the Royal College of Art in the famous Interactions Design section alongside Fiona Raby and Anthony Dunne. Since 2015, James has devoted himself to his research projects at the Madeira Institute of Technology and writes regularly with Julian Hanna on modern design issues (Crap Futures).
Making Gravity Battery related work and more...
Designer and Philosopher in the Netherlands?
Collaborator w/ Quentin Fiore and Marshall McLuhan
Publisher of books, or in fact "producer" of books as he often said. Many books he worked on say "Produced by Jerome Agel"
John Dewey comes up a lot in educational texts. Particularly the avant garde teaching methods, schools, etc.
Author, Thinker, Sustainabilitist
In the Bubble was his first book I read…
Executive Director Project Drawdown
Filmmaker, poet, Dane
Product Design Faculty Maryland Institute College of Art
I teach classes where students are involved. Where students drive the conversation, and where we use technology, objects, models and sketches as an excuse to talk about empathy, objectivity, context and other discourses that drive the design profession forward. I like to help shape designers that not only render and make beautifully, but that are hungry to solve people’s problems in an appropriate and assertive way. This is a bit about how I help spread this culture
Able to pair the tools and techniques, the practical and the technological. with the emotional and philosophical and theoretical...
Regular Attendance to Faculty Assembly
During my time at MICA, I have been in regular attendance of the monthly Faculty Assembly meetings, participating in every vote and discussion, advocating for Faculty with similar visa and income restrictions, especially during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Juan attends all the Faculty Assemblies. He has voted in all of our faculty votes so far, particularly in supporting his fellow Faculty with visa and other restrictions during this last year of pandemic related contractual issues.
Speaker at Spring 2020 Full Faculty Meeting
At the end of the Spring 2020 semester (which was partially an online-only semester with a very difficult pivot for the MICA community) I was asked to do a short presentation to the Full Faculty body of MICA, in which I presented my student work successfully navigating the transition from the studio and shops at MICA, to an online classroom.
I included work my students did using remote prototyping, photogrammetry, 3D printing, Augmented Reality (AR) and other alternate methods of making and collaborating remotely.
Juan also chose to share a short presentation with the rest of us faculty at the Spring 2020 full faculty meeting on his work transitioning his classroom to online. This is another positive example of serving the school at large above and beyond the requests of “service” in our handbook.
MAEA/MICA High School Artist Event
In November 2019, I designed and performed a workshop with a group of high school level students in coordination with the Maryland Art Education Association (MAEA). This workshop attempted to walk students through what a Product Designer does and the role of product design in the world. Afterwards, I shared the process of creation of a project I was heavily involved in, the Electroninks “Circuit Scribe” education kit, a toy that teaches people of all ages about basic electronics concepts through the use of a conductive ink pen and magnetic modules. The workshop was very successful and received rave reviews from the students in attendance, as well as the supervising teachers.
Juan even represents Product Design and MICA to the greater community at large, performing a workshop for the Maryland Art Education Association (MAEA). The workshop showcased the department as well as Juan's own work — an example of how Juan's work from the field and his capabilities in serving the department are synergistic.
National Portfolio Review
In November 2019, I participated as a reviewer for National Portfolio Review in Baltimore, representing the Product Design Department and reviewing the work of potential applicants.
Juan reviews perspective students for the Product Design department as part of MICA's National Portfolio Review day. This is vital service to the department.
FYE Open House Speaker
During Spring 2020, and in collaboration with the First Year Experience (FYE) faculty and my Department Chair, I hosted three sessions on Product Design for the FYE Open House event, where freshman students were able to visit several departments of their choice, tour the facilities, and learn more about the different majors offered at MICA. My presentations centered on the role of Product Design in the world, and the profile of student that we are looking to engage with to become Product Designers. Since the session schedule collided with some classes in our building, I also prepared a virtual tour of the facilities at the Dolphin Design Center.
Juan was able to help FYE students learn more about Product Design during the Department Open House day run by FYE. I heard firsthand from students how impressed they were with Juan's presentation and the Product Design department as a whole (opportunities, workspace, and potential course content). Juan was able to again serve the department well in his role as FYE Open House speaker.
Departmental Exhibition FA19
In early 2020, I was tasked with putting together an exhibit with the best work from the Fall 2019 semester. In the Dolphin Design Center gallery space, I curated, designed and mounted an exhibit featuring some of the best work, ranging from conceptual work, research work, to furniture prototypes and 3D printed prototypes. The exhibit was well received and used as a backdrop for other concurrent events such as the FYE open house, which enriched the context for such presentations.
As part of helping the campus at large see and understand what happens in Dolphin as product designers, Juan put together an exhibition. I found the exhibition to illustrate a variety of ideas and techniques that students can engage in as product designers. Juan was able to serve the department well with this effort. It overlapped with the FYE open house, so was able to benefit the department on multiple levels.
RCCE Search Committee Service
During the Fall 2020 Semester, I participated in a search committee that aimed to find the perfect candidate for the Co-Director position at MICA’s Ratcliffe Center for Creative Entrepreneurship. I personally reviewed over two dozen comprehensive applications, scored them, helped with the interview process and participated of the candidates’ public and private presentations. This search resulted in a job offer for a suitable candidate.
Juan also served on a search committee. Juan helped to review application, interview candidates, and attend their presentations. The search committees are not required, and Juan went beyond his service requirements serving on a committee like this so early in his MICA career!
Community Engagement Committee
During Fall 2019, Spring 2020 and Fall 2020, I have served in the Community Engagement Committee, reviewing proposals and allocating grants in conjunction with the Center for Creative Citizenship at MICA.
Juan's main committee service was on the Community Engagement Committee, which works as an extension of the Center for Creative Citizenship. This committee reviews a lot of proposals for grants related to partnering MICA faculty and community-based organizations. Juan must review a lot of material and be present and committed to his committee to complete this role effectively.
Juan also served on a search committee. Juan helped to review application, interview candidates, and attend their presentations. The search committees are not required, and Juan went beyond his service requirements serving on a committee like this so early in his MICA career!
Guest Lecturer: “Intercultural Discourse at the intersections of Art, Design + Media”
During the Fall 2020 semester, I participated as a guest lecturer on a course taught by Prof. Sukyun Lee, from the Graduate Liberal Arts Department. In an hour-long presentation, I focused around my practice as a product designer, and how the connections to my cultural identity have impacted my work. I then engaged in a Q&A session with a student group with many ELL students and international students who themselves grapple with the impact of their own culture in their work at MICA and beyond.
Juan generously visits other classrooms and courses around campus. He participated in Sukyun Lee's Intercultural Discourse at the intersections of Art, Design + Media course for grad students as a guest lecturer. Juan's unique background and path to MICA professor allow him to serve not only his department, but international students and faculty at large.
Undergraduate Admitted Student Workshop - Product Design in a Virtual World
In April 2020, after the Covid-19 Pandemic caused the MICA community to dramatically pivot to online learning for the remainder of the semester, I was approached by the admissions department to put together an hour long session that focused on how Product Design could be taught remotely. I leveraged the use of technologies such as 3D scanning and Photogrammetry, to be able to lift my student’s clay or foam models and transform them into digital models that could be manipulated, rendered, 3D printed and shared through Augmented Reality (AR), this way maintaining an active critique/conversation with their peers much like in the studio.
Juan was able to help serve the department (and again, MICA as an institution) in an engagement undertaken with admissions: providing a workshop for how Product Design might work remotely. Juan was able to take the department's existing resources, and some ideas that has already been tested in last springs shift to virtual, and then work with admitted students to show off these ideas and techniques (Physical making, 3D scanning, rendering, etc.)
PPE Fabrication and Design
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an extreme shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) throughout the world. As the MICA campus shut down, and in collaboration with the MICA Fabrication studios, I repurposed two of the 3D printers from the Dolphin Design Center, and through several weeks, manufactured several hundred face shield frames in MICA’s name, which were distributed to healthcare providers in need by Open Works throughout the state of Maryland. In addition, I was able to collaborate with peers at MIT and the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, in the improvement of existing face shield designs for quick manufacture using automated equipment. I was also able to collaborate in Guateplast (Guatemala City) a large injection molded plastic manufacturer, in the creation of a low-cost face shield alternative appropriate to the local context.
As an example of service to the department, to the school, to Baltimore at large, and hey, to humanity in general, Juan helped find ways to make PPE – face shields specifically – in a couple of different styles and with different digital fabrication tools and through a multiple local, national, and international partners. Again this work showcases the department, and MICA at large, truly serving the MICA mission of "thriving, [not only] with Baltimore," but with everyone.
He lives on an ocean worthy Sailboat! He could be anywhere!
Former student, occasional current internet friend. Open-sourcerer: when last I heard, Karen was a Ubuntu user!?
Edible Forest promoter
Upstate new york
heard him on Designers of Paradise podcast
Japanese ceramic repair ideology – "Golden repair"
You use a bit of gold to fix/repair cracked ceramics.
Creator of the Everything is a Remix series. Video Essays about other things as well.
so what are we going to do? what are we going to help people change with instead?
How do we as designers become masters of behavior change? but not use it for evil!!??
Information wants to be free, and it is time we let it. Disseminating knowledge and information has never been easier. We need to increase, not limit, people’s access. Sustainabilitists must become masters of knowledge.
Kristian Bjørnard is an Educator, Designer, Sustainabilitist, and Open-sourcerer based in Baltimore, MD. He works at the nexus of visual communication, the public domain, climate change, and technology. In his spare time Kristian dabbles in permaculture farming and attempts to make an old stone house, where he lives with his wife and children, energy efficient. Kristian holds an MFA in Graphic Design from MICA and a BA in Studio Art from Kalamazoo College.
Personal Acquaintance with:
Henry George says that land is a god-given resource that should be available for all…
Interesting explanation of what makes up Laser Toner from Wired Magazine
Here’s an easy way to launch on time and on budget: keep them fixed. Never throw more time or money at a problem, just scale back the scope.
https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/02.4-fix-time-and-budget-flex-scope
The laws of media are phrased as questions instead of statements.
Each question can produce multiple answers.
Online class for Linkedin Learning by Scott Boylston
Because a student has learned a technical skill does not mean they comprehend the best time, place, or use for said skill. Classrooms are where understanding happens — you can put technical skills to work outside of a simple demonstration or project. Class time should create connections between demonstrated tools, and skills and other larger ideas and concerns (social, cultural, economic, etc.). These connections result in increased comprehension for how one might use design to investigate any presented problem.
I've got some ideas for lectures... Find scripts, ideas, prompts, slides, and more here.
When I talk about sustainability, I'm talking about these mindsets.
Here are some other Definitions of Sustainability

The Sustainabilitist Principles is a modular manifesto; a collection of the ways of thinking to sustainably design as I considered them in 2009. The goal: create an object whose form embodied the principles it conveyed.
The Sustainabilitist Principles started out as the books on my desk. Where did "sustainable designing" lay within them… I mapped connections between ideas… wrote down repeating ideas… pondered interconnections over time and space of similar principles… how could I clarify access to these ideas for the next designer?
The final output of this direction brought necessary pieces together in an intentional, ephemeral form for an exhibition. We don't need another book or poster series to explain these principles: the objects themselves could do it if put together correctly!
The books were my actual books. The screen printed definitions were printed on the front matter of found paperback novels. The interconnecting embroidery floss was used in the longest possible pieces to maximize reuse of the thread afterward.
This was my first truly successful piece of "sustainable graphic design." It was also my last "answer" to a question in grad school: "What does sustainable Graphic Design look like?"
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Related:
A prompt.
What does it look like? Should it matter that it looks different or the same?
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This question continues to fascinate me. Alongside the Sustainabilitist principles, I had works that I felt fell into 4 types of "answers":
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Related:
Sustainable design does not exist was at first pessimistic. Is design all just trash? does design create waste period, so nothing is sustainable? Anything we make is unmaking so much else; so all design is unsustainable.
But! Sustainable design does not exist came to signify an alternative; it didn't exist because it was ephemeral! because it reused existing objects in a new way! that it left no trace! that it was part of a vernacular process! suddenly this felt like a prompt for new works; new questions! A useful constraint for future work.
Where does this thinking lead us? We can think of all our designs as living within the context of nature, and we can think of how they might look or what they might be made of or what audience a design might be serving… Is there a clearer way to articulate what "Sustainable Graphic Design" is?
In the 2013 book Flourishing: A Frank Conversation about Sustainability, John Ehrenfeld writes “The key to doing something about sustainability is that you first have to say what it is that you want to sustain.” To define sustainable graphic design we must first define what it is we are sustaining.
If sustainable graphic design is design in service of what we want to sustain, how do you decide what's worth sustaining? (because, if we pick the wrong thing, say we want to sustain the status quo, then that is what sustainable graphic design is — hmmm!?).
Ehrenfeld answers that for us too. He wants to sustain “that all humans and other life should flourish.”
Designer Bruce Mau had a similar goal for the Massive Change project: “Our project is the welfare of all life as a practical objective.” (design for the welfare of all life)
This is what we'll use as our definition of Sustainable Graphic Design for the remainder of the talk: Sustainable graphic design is “graphic design in support of all life flourishing,” or, “graphic design for the welfare of all life.”
All life flourishing is not the traditional goal of business, culture, and design. Sustainable Graphic Design defined this way is different than "regular" cultural production.
Throughout western art and design history new or “different” thinking and tools correlate with new or different aesthetic outcomes.
Sustainability brings with it all manner of new technologies, new social structures, new tools. Should Sustainable graphic design then carry with it additional new forms and aesthetics?
Does a font’s appearance matter as much as the energy and material and social ills it saves? Is selecting a font that uses minimal ink the best way to select a font? Would a font that is condensed, that uses up less space (saving paper over a print run; exposure to chemicals to the printer) be better? Can we combine the these? The thinest, most condensed, lightest ink coverage font is the most sustainable? This can easily be taken absurd lengths.
This is useful for critiquing design choices; it tackles outcomes from a resource perspective; can show a different "visual languages;" but does it embrace “the welfare of all life?”
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby write in their 2001 book Design Noir: The Secret Life of Objects that “all design is ideological, the design process is informed by values based on a specific world view.” With “the welfare of all life” as our world view, how does that shift what and how we graphic design?
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby are proponents of “Critical Design,” design that “provides a critique of the prevailing situation through designs that embody alternative social, cultural, technical, or economic values.”
Sustainable graphic design is not just design that helps people and our planet, but design that is also critical of existing social, cultural, technical, AND economic structures; since many of these things are harming all life, not helping them to flourish.
Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses, and Abandoned Lots was a book I worked on with my friend and curator Sue Spaid, for the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, OH. Green Acres featured artists using farming as their art practice.
The goal: make the resultant book "sustainable." These were sustainability focused artists, how could I represent their ecological inventiveness in a printed book? The things that made the production of this book "sustainable" were that it was printed on demand, and used recycled, unbleached paper.
Visually, the book's design was meant to be _critical_; the juxtaposition of small art farm graphics vs. giant commercial farm references via a constrained square grid and the aerial commercial farmland photography. (» Critical Design)
While the book intends to say something different, it conforms to common standards of "good" modernist layout. Other than a minor production method improvement, it's the same … ! Is it Sustainable Graphic Design?
We judge graphic design using visual criteria for "formal goodness" or "beauty" from the systems we must be critical of.
The principles of "good" modernist design are so embedded in culture that they are the principles of "good" graphic designing.
— Jerome Harris
Contemporary formal goodness evolved from late 19th through mid-20th centuries western art traditions. The formal concepts of Modernist Capitalism do not so far seem to lead to all life flourishing (it's usually the opposite!).
What new criteria for formal goodness or "beauty" are necessary for Sustainable designs!?
(And, if a modern design is made by modernists, then sustainable design is made by sustainabilitists?)
In The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton writes: “To call a work of architecture or design beautiful is to recognize it as a rendition of values critical to our flourishing. A transubstantiation of our individual ideals in a material medium.” This would then seem that however our ideals are materialized into graphic design yields “beautiful” graphic design. Botton specifically mentions "values critical to our flourishing." If we merge Botton's idea with our "all life flourishing" focused graphic design then sustainable design IS beautiful design. This doesn't imply a style or aesthetic, but instead a shared set of values. We get other criteria to help judge the goodness of a design, not purely formal, but the content, the context.
Sustainable designers must see the non-sustainable as the less than beautiful. If your design doesn't account for the welfare of all life, whatever the external aesthetics that wrap it, your design is ugly. Edwin Datschefksi calls this “the hidden ugliness of traditional products.” Basically, the non-sustainable is (& can only be) ugly.
So: A design is both sustainable AND beautiful when its form declares that humans and all other life should flourish.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
— Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, Molly Bawn, 1878
How can both "Sustainable Design = Beautiful Design" AND "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" be true?
“There are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness”
— Stendhal
It's not a new idea that beauty isn't the same for everyone
"Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them."
— David Hume, _Essays, Moral and Political_, 1742
How Does a sustainabilitist account for pluralities as to what constitutes “beautiful?” How do we begin to share "all life flourishing" as an overarching socio-cultural value?
But! If you design for the welfare of all life, it doesn't matter what the design looks like, the design will be beautiful!?
Instead of what does sustainable graphic design look like then, a more important question is what values underpin your sustainable graphic design? Or, what values does your sustainable graphic design signal out to the world?
How does your design makes tangible, makes understandable, something about sustainability?
This is doable no matter the project; no matter the prompt. There are myriad aspects of climate change and sustainability one might signal. Each even in their tiniest part we can think of as contributing to "all life flourishing."
This is another opportunity to find the context for which "beauty" exists in a design without resorting to superficial, external styling. We can focus on values or ethics in the unique contexts of each new project.
A concept that was never made due to some weird problems; but that sent me down this direction: The Copenhagen waste to energy plant is so clean its exhaust stack puffs only CO2 and water vapor. (Its also a public ski hill and hiking mountain) Upon capturing 1 ton of CO2, exhausts it as a smoke ring. Help you visualize this otherwise intangible aspect of sustainability!? (Bjarke Ingels Group)
(FACT CHECK NOTES FROM ISABEL!?)
Images? what else?
Reverberation Crosswalks are fun, brightly colored crosswalks. Just paint on cement and asphalt they still signal a sustainable vector forward. The neighborhood around this intersection is now more walkable. You can't not notice the crosswalks. They contribute to life flourishing in the city. This concept is cheap; fast; easily replicated; can be customized for region, culture, available materials, etc. (Graham Coreil Allen)
Low Tech Magazine's solar powered website signals how we might visualize energy usage; how we might enable new systems of powering our tools; questions if we really need constant connection; and how aesthetic choices correlate to physical resources even in the digital sphere. (Kris De Decker & Marie Otsuka)
The DC water mark project visualizes increased flooding and water level rise. The water level rings articulate "oh shit, this place might be underwater pretty frequently given our current projected future!" By signaling this, perhaps we can act accordingly and redirect our present towards a future where that is no longer true. Without _seeing_ your house or office or favorite park area submerged, even symbolically, you cannot envision an alternative. (Curry J. Hackett / Wayside Studio)
Enrolled in various courses and acquired certification for sustainable/green knowledge. To flaunt new found titles, created merit patches to be worn on gray coveralls during events and gardening sessions. <http://tattfoo.com/sos/SOSGreenStewardship.html> (Tattfoo Tan & S.O.S. Steward)
The cradle to cradle books are signs signaling sustainability. C2C is a "technical" nutrient — the entire book is made to be taken back into a production process — the pages are plastic, the ink reclaimable. The Upcycle is instead a biological nutrient, made to decompose and return to the cycles of nature. Paper, ink, binding, is all made to biodegrade… This fully signals the ideology of Cradle to Cradle. (Michael Braungart and William McDonough (with the design Paul Sahre))
“There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named. It is never twice the same, because it always takes its shape from the particular place in which it occurs.”
— Christopher Alexander
The qualities that do promote the welfare of all life are, like the quality without a name Alexander presents, ineffable. And like the quality without a name, the aesthetics that correspond with this — the graphic design visuals that might show the welfare of all life — shift and change with different contexts. A wild garden, a biodegradable book, a thriving farmers market.
In prepping this lecture I was looking for the thread that connected my works together. That thread I thought was: what does sustainable graphic design look like? Everything I make continues to be an attempt at providing more answers to this.
But, I used to be hung up on the visual aesthetics. I wanted sustainable things to LOOK DIFFERENT to have their own aesthetic… but what I've learned is that the way sustainable graphic design looks isn't as important as the values underpinning the designs themselves. Anything that helps promote the flourishing of nature’s interconnected systems will look "correct" formally. That doesn’t require a (externally decided) particular style, material, or typeface.
This is an interim piece for the MICA graduate admissions office. Visually the goal was to convey the diversity of graduate programs, as well as some of the current chaos of our present. Different graduate directors were trying to convey the values of their programs, could the visuals contribute to that. AND, there was an ask for the piece to embrace "sustainability."
So, the design decisions are all spurred by those constraints. Free, open, accessible culture is an important value of mine, and that makes its way into this via the imagery selected and the open source fonts. This also gave me ways to find "art historically" relevant images, and repurpose them to my meaning making.
The printing solution was designed to minimize printing waste — the front and back of this "poster" are printed all as one plate, so the press sheet goes through the press once, then is flipped over, and goes through the press again, voila. This means front and back of the pages were able to all be printed with one plate per color instead of two or more… All of these "values" intermingled here together, do they add up to a sustainable design? a beautiful design?
Fast forward from Green Acres. Sue Spaid, now living in Belgium, has a new exhibition: Ecovention Europe, ecologically inventive artists working in Europe, and there is another book.
In the interim since Green Acres, I heard designer Sara de Bondt discuss the Radical Nature catalog designed for the Barbican in London. De Bondt's studio wrote a sustainable printing manifesto as part of the research for the catalog's production.
De Bondt's "manifesto" reminded me about constraints for framing design decisions: How might I re-examine the design choices of _Green Acres_ through new constraints? Could I improve the sustainability (and the sustainable aesthetics) for _Ecovention Europe_?
One of the items in De Bondt's printing manifesto is "use less ink." This meant selecting colors more carefully. The palette of _Ecovention Europe_ uses no color that adds up to more that 100% ink coverage. (_Ecovention Europe_ uses CMYK: and color palette swatches start at 100% pure C, M, Y, or K, and then are mixed in equal percentages to keep 100% or less total coverage: 50% + 50%; 33% + 33% + 33%; etc.). This resulted in a color palette that was fairly special for this book. Reducing ink also led to a graphic solution, bitmapped city aerial photos as the decorative section markers. The appearance of a filled area is kept, but less ink is used comparatively.
Text columns in _Green Acres_ ended at full paragraphs breaks to make editing easier. This gave a formally-nice rhythm to text columns, but it was an inefficient use of space. With _Ecovention Europe_, I reduced this space by running all the text the full column heights. This had the secondary benefit of minimizing superfluous decoration: In _Green Acres_, superficial decorative elements filled those blanks left by text columns ending mid-page.
I even tried to reduce decision making through reuse. The grid for _Green Acres_ had a lot of conceptual reasoning invested into it, and so I reused the page templates, type choices, grid setup, etc.
As a conceptual exercise, this was great. But, did it make much of a difference? How could this be done differently and improved upon again next time? Is there an alternative to making this book at all? (Should this exist? I didn’t ask that question before we began!)
Keep your code as simple as possibleeach time you increase the amount of code, your software grows exponentially more complicatedInstead of trying to predict future problems, you deal only with the problems of today
Design is the intentional solution of a problem, by the creation of plans for a new sort of thing, where the plans would not be immediately seen, by a reasonable person, as an inadequate solution.
What's your most valuable stuff? Not the house or car. It’s the things we share in common: gifts of nature, like air and water, and the sum of all human knowledge and experience, including science and culture. They form the basis of humanity’s common wealth, and without them we couldn’t breathe, drink, or create. We call them, collectively, "The Commons."
In contrast to the Circular Economy
exemplified by the Take, Make, Waste style of industry/design
Linus' work on his project, the Linux kernel, is the foundation of the Open Source movement. See Linus's Law from Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar
Linux is finally becoming valuable for Design/DTP area as it has been for long on the Internet/Web and programming areas. But you can’t expect The Gimp to surpass Photoshop. At least not in the next few years. And this is the reality. If we can, we must train our students to use the best tools available. Ideally all tools available, so they won’t have problems when faced with a tool professionally.
Local Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
A design movement to rebuild an understanding of indigenous philosophy and vernacular architecture that generates sustainable, climate-resilient infrastructure.
Prep for Nebraska Lecture
I have spent a lot of time lately looking through old works, reading through old essays and lectures... just trying to analyze what I've done; go back to existing presentations and lectures...
I've been struck by a couple of things.
Okay, so I am gonna go through a couple of my favorite works from the last twenty years. I'll try to point out quickly what was good about them, how they came to be, why they are the way they are...
This will be part revisionist history, part utopian speculation.
Does any of this matter?
What does design do? and what does it mean?
Sustainability as flourishing. What does this mean for designing? we strive for a context in which all life can flourish.
Design and the welfare of all life. How does this change how design is practiced and defined?
Looking Closer 5: Critical Writings on Graphic Design (Bk. 5) Paperback – January 15, 2007
by Michael Beirut (Editor), William Drenttel (Editor), Steven Heller (Editor)
The final installment in this acclaimed series offers astute and controversial discussions on contemporary graphic design from 2001 to 2005. This collection of essays takes stock of the quality and profundity of graphic design writing published in professional and general interest design magazines, as well as on blogs and Internet journals. Prominent contributors include Milton Glaser, Maud Lavin, Ellen Lupton, Victor Margolin, Mr. Keedy, David Jury, Alice Twemlow, Steven Heller, Jessica Helfand, William Drenttel, Michael Bierut, Michael Dooley, Nick Curry, Emily King, and more. Among the important themes discussed: design as popular culture, design as art, politics, aesthetics, social responsibility, typography, the future of design, and more. Students, graphic designers beginning their careers, and veterans seeking fresh perspective will savor this anthology gathered from some of today’s top graphic design writers and practitioners, as well as commentators from outside the profession. From the series that helped launch the design criticism movement and was the first to anthologize graphic design criticism from key sources, this volume promises to be the most provocative of all!
Designer that only uses F/LOS — collaborator with Eric Schrijver. Open Source Publishing participant
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Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
LoFi or Lo-Fi or low fidelity.
imperfect. quick. low quality. basically, how do you use less than perfect means of producing the things you wish to produce. This can be useful in a prototyping phase, quickly making things to test before you spend too much time or money on something that might not work. It can also just be a strategy for completing things — sometimes less than perfect is good enough.
Getting Real is a low-risk, low-investment way to test new concepts
https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/01.3-caveats-disclaimers-and-other-preemptive-strikes
Human Functionalism: Making design thoughts public so that they are not limited to the experience of the designer and can incorporate scientific knowledge of human abilities and limitations.
There isn't a single solution to any of our planetary and societal issues. To solve climate change we have to do MANY things.
Designer. Climate Designer. founder of Climate Designers
Friend. I talk to him occasionally about climate change and graphic design, etc.
Met him thanks to Eric Benson
I read Design Futures and Education for Life Essentials as a peer reviewer for academia letters...
Marco Bevolo, Ph.D.
As June came to an end, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told his employees about an ambitious new initiative. The future of the company would go far beyond its current project of building a set of connected social apps and some hardware to support them. Instead, he said, Facebook would strive to build a maximalist, interconnected set of experiences straight out of sci-fi — a world known as the metaverse.
Herbert Marshall McLuhan CC was a Canadian philosopher, whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory.
An Art and Design college.
Massimo De Angelis (Italy) is Professor of Political Economy at the University of East London. He is author, most recently, of The Beginning of History: Value Struggles and Global Capital, and editor of The Commoner web journal, at http://commoner.org.uk.
Contributor to Wealth of the Commons
https://archive.ica.art/whats-on/massimo-de-angelis-commons-and-social-change/index.html
why let just a few people decide a master plan? that's not very smart
Lawyer, Typographer, Designer.
What is it for?
Mediation was for training your brain not to be constantly disatisfied with pain and struggle in your life.
linkedIn learning course that was interesting. quick, easy listen with some simple mental games to try and retrain your brain for confident action.
Mental pain, if we let it, will stick with us forever.
The meaning we create is what actually makes us suffer.
using some images from this popular science post https://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2009-09/taking-chances/
Also this: https://abel-video.wixsite.com/drivethefutureexpo/canola-oil-car
Typeface as software by Donald Knuth
The idea was that it was a font tool for drawing any kind of font.
The metaverse is having a moment. Coined in Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel, the term refers to a convergence of physical, augmented, and virtual reality in a shared online space.
Software development has a methodology called “agile” whose goal is quickly solving, resolving, and iterating solutions. The first step is to come up with the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This MVP doesn’t have all the features nor polish. Its goal is to achieve the minimum requirements as rapidly as possible. The next iteration tries to refine and fix found issues, builds more feature robustness, or sometimes re-imagines or re-builds the solution a different way if the first proved to have too many bugs or conceptual holes. Design teaching (and design making) benefits from adopting this ideology. Things do not have to be “finished” to allow a student to grow. Doing, failing, and moving on can be more useful for understanding than refining towards an unrealistic formal ideal.
Commonly used Dictionary and Thesaurus.
We are currently starting from rest. Once underway, our processes and ideals will carry themselves into culture, manufacturing, and government by their own momentum. First we must change the inertia of our current operations—doing whatever possible to slow its progression.
Writer, Designer, Contrarian. Awesome.
Anarchist, Writer, Lecturer, Thinker... seems like someone I should learn more about.
NASA: Acronym for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Besides awesome space missions, NASA does all kinds of amazing climate and weather research.
Peter Griffith is NASA climate scientist I have met and had to class.
Trying to collect a bunch of threads and notes together that all were on notecards and scraps of paper I was using to prepare for a talk: A New Design Commons that I gave in October of 2022 originally.
AIGA Surface conference... a DEC sub-section of the AIGA national conference that fall...
This are more complex than they were 30 years ago — so what? Complexity is not the problem
do your tools still work like they did 30 years ago? do you want the thinking and mindsets of a few white guys (and Susan Kare) in silicon valley in the 80s still deciding how and why your design software does what it does the way it does?
I am going to provide some Pragmatic Utopian thinking so that we are not constrained by the Tyranny of the Possible (reference to Stephen Duncombe, Utopia is No Place
David Rudnick: Serve clients over audience? serve audience over clients?
How does a Design Commons, or a return to some more vernacular style of design allow us to connect w/ our audiences more?
Univers Strikes Back > Ellen Lupton mentions Thinking with Type is a book for everyone; eveyrone needs type.
Ellen Lupton says about her book Thinking with Type:
This book was never intended for experts, it is a book for everyone; everyone deserves good typography
Expand to design; design for everyone
To make design benefit everyone, we need more equitable, accessible and modifiable tools and resources
50's —> 80's = International Style
Self-organized models: shift to needs and desires of those that actually use models, systems, structures …
There are many models:
The Commons is: The theory that vets all property in the community and organizes labor for the common benefit of all — it must exist in both judicial forms and day to day material reality
Elinor Ostrom wrote How to Govern a Commons. In it there are Ostrom’s 8 rules: 8 principles?
Elinor Ostrom's 8 rules for managing The Commons
This is part of defining a commons ala David Bollier and Peter Linebaugh
depend on neither the state nor the market
from David Bollier and Elinor Ostrom and Peter Linebaugh?
Stewart Brand in How Buildings Learn describes a vernacular design process, this is the same as the open source process,
Vernacular as Stewart Brand uses it means common design by commons people (for common problems?) — designs that are in the commons.
V1
this process, slow iteration over time, collecting and solutions, getting rid of bad solutions, solutions adapting to regional style, regional materials, regional tastes
A starting place: 020210303222832 Entry
An ecosystem of Forced Competition.
A new form of manifest destiny — instead of pushing ever west and conquering lands, we now conquer attention and personal time and space from each other
An idea.
A lecture.
A New Design Commons?
As I was working on this talk, I woke up one morning to find that Adobe had acquired the company Figma and their tools for 20billion dollars.
Obviously, this sucks for the entire design community. Adobe has done a lot of harm to the design community with their exploitative pricing strategy and their refusal the fix existing products. Everyone, even students, are forced to use it not because they like it they but because it is the only option, and have to pay hundreds for it. It's great to see other design tools becoming more popular in recent years as people start finding alternatives. The tools we use influence what we make and dictate the people who have access to them. Having a diverse toolset to choose from is good. Even if Figma doesn't change much in the first few years, relying on one company for design gives them way too much power in dictating who and how people design. – Amanda Yeh
20 billion? woah. And seriously?
Now, Figma isn't open source – it's built on a lot of open source tools, but the app itself is closed. However, the ethos around using the tool and the community that build up quickly around Figma IS open — how might this change moving forward?
Why bring this up?
Amanda's concerns: that we're forced to use something because its the monopolistic hegemony, not because its the best or even good...
Do you know how to hook a room full of design educators? Quote Ellen Lupton…
In 2006 Ellen Lupton presented a talk at aTypi called _Univers Strikes Back_. In this talk, Dr. Lupton says about her book, thinking with type:
My book was never intended for experts. It is a book for everyone, because I believe that everyone on earth needs typography and can benefit from working with letterforms at the highest level.
If we expand this out, my goal is to reframe Ellen's message in terms of design more generally. That everyone on earth needs design and would benefit from working with design tools at the highest level…
If we as educators wish to create new knowledge; to actually teach the next generation(s) of designers, and to spread and disseminate our craft so as to make a difference, well, we need to embrace open, shareable framework(s) for design. We need tools and content free from enclosure. Our teaching can influence each other, and the broader world around us if we adopt a more open ideology—create a digital design commons!!??
From Knuth: This work and thinking is _in progress_, rather than _finished_ research or designs… And maybe this is good: trying to figure out what exactly you're doing and designing is often more interesting than critiquing a design once completed...
Now, onto the show.
Who controls your design tools? Who controls your computer? Who controls your pedagogy? Is it you? Or is it some big company? Adobe? Apple? Google? Someone else???
Adobe turned off access to all of the creative suite on Venezual a couple of years ago (cite!?) October 2019? https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/adobe-block-venezuela-digital-111019
A computer is a universal machine — computers take instructions and then do them! Who's supplying these instructions? Who is allowing for what instructions they get?
How to keep this from just getting into a software discussion???
I am against adobe, I am against apple, but I don't want to just talk about that in graphic design — I want to get be talking about how we take the recipes we have and find more and better tools to build and make and share and remix them. Sure you COULD use the proprietary tools to make these recipes, but it would be even better to not! Why? Well, I don't know why other than its a critical act ala Dunne and Raby's critical design.
What do I mean by a design commons? Basically that the recipe of a design work is shared for anyone to use.
Four Freedoms...
Can they be better explained as: - Access to the source (recipe?): basically what are the raw materials you need to do this, and how can it be insured that users/community can access them? - vernacular design examples? - The ability to remix/redistribute work as one needs (provided proper credit!) - End to predatory vendor lock in - Increased collaboration
A lot of the language around these things obviously comes from contemporary software — well, the last 40 years of software, Stallman's Free Software rants started in 1983 I believe!? But this is really just the way the world of cultural production has operated.
What are some Myths of the commons and open source? 1. No control of work - what can be added/removed from a specific project is controllable 2. Open is unsafe? 3. Everything is FREE as in Gratis - NO! The "recipe" might be free, but all the constituent parts might have costs associated - House building?
When we call software “free,” we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.” – https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
This is a key aspect of learning — we as design educators need to adopt this as part of our pedagogy right? If we want students to get the most of their time with us, but using "free" tools that are free in this way, we increase access to learning! Take a font for example — requesting the use of open source or libre fonts in a project prompt means that students not only can use the fonts however they see fit, they can also change nd customize the font, or look at the source files and learn something extra about how a font has been made!?
How does this help in the general "commons" idea?
What kind of "cookbook" might we make?
My interest in the commons is grounded in a desire for the conditions necessary to promote social justice, sustainability, and happy lives for all. As simple as that. – Massimo De Angelis
This talk is nothing new, it is a remix of all manner of other's writing and ideas and lectures — including my own.
Basically, free software combines capitalist, socialist and anarchist ideas. The capitalist part is: free software is something businesses can use and develop and sell. The socialist part is: we develop this knowledge, which becomes available to everyone and improves life for everyone. And the anarchist part: you can do what you like with it. – Richard Stallman, Talking to the Mailman, NLR 113, September–October 2018
Software as a service models — while perhaps "convenient" — are a form of intellectual enclosure. Models like Adobe Creative cloud deprive us our rights of access and privilege. This is the equivalent of running barbed wire across the Great Plains, or walling in an English pasture. We've created an annoying block for our future access to the resources and tools of our discipline.
"The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, managed for collective benefit…" — this is a riff on Wikipedia's definition ...
If we are in the business of cultural production, of knowledge creation, and of passing on better possible futures, then we have to be thinking about "the commons" as design educators.
The commons is a term that is used to describe a shared resource that is available for everyone to use. Contemporaneously, the term is often used in the context of open source software or creative works, like those that are released under a Creative Commons license. The idea behind the commons is that when we all have access to and can use these resources, we can create something greater than what any one of us could create on our own. This is how cultural production has historically worked — so why not return to this?
One of the first and very technical typesetting tools for the world of computers was Donald Knuth's TeX and the accompanying Metafont. If you are in the practice of typesetting scientific documents or graduate thesis, TeX — or more likely its progeny, LaTex or ConTeXt … This has had legs, not because of force buy in, but because of technical superiority AND open-ness…
This is a fabulous typographic tool — why did no designer ever show this to me? Why did my college room mate that went on to become a biologist have to tell me about it? Why did I learn about Donald Knuth too late! I mean, this guy dreamed up variable fonts in the 80s…
Adobe and their subscription service are the latest kind of "enclosure" on the commons
The vernacular, common design by common people, of and for and from the commons.
Can we design this way anymore? I mean, trends still exist — but following a trend isn't the same as building upon the commons. (Why? And why not?)
Vernacular design, often this is
Dunne and Raby, critical design…
If we are critical of the status quo, if we are trying to create alternatives, well then we need alternative tools, alternative visual references, and alternative ways to share with and learn from each other.
The pursuit of uniqueness is devalued; dynamicism and flexibility are more important than originality, because originality itself is unattainable. … “Normcore is about adaptability, not exclusivity.”— 3.2 Normcore as Brand Strategy, https://libbymarrs.net/post-authentic-sincerity/graphic design being codified and converted into algorithmsABANDON YOUR PURSUIT OF AUTHENTICITY! Normalize copying... ...but only copy from the top. anticipate the theft of your intellectual property and time, so practice your own time theft and bootlegging. Conserve your energy by letting go of originality... *** > a commercial system bent on turning the free range intellectual culture that gave birth to computer science into a rude agglomeration of proprietary gated communities > — Free as in Freedom (v2.0); preface by sam Williams; pg vii > The notice was simple, something along the lines of \The printer is jammed, please fix it," and because it went out to the people with the most pressing need to fix the problem, chances were that one of them would fix it forthwith. > — FAIF, pg3 ¶2 L10 > A program would develop the way a city develops," says Stallman, recalling the software infrastructure of the AI Lab. \Parts would get replaced and rebuilt. New things would get added on. But you could always look at a certain part and say,Hmm, by the style, I see this part was written back in the early 60s and this part was written in the mid-1970s.'" > — FAIF, Pg5 ¶3 If something is good enough to solve your problems, is it not good enough to solve someone else's problems too??? > Why not share it out of a simple desire for good karma? This system of cooperation was being undermined by commercial secrecy and greed, leading to peculiar combinations of secrecy and co-operation. > Stallman later explained, \If he had refused me his cooperation for personal reasons, it would not have raised any larger issue. I might have considered him a jerk, but no more. The fact that his refusal was impersonal, that he had promised in advance to be uncooperative, not just to me but to anyone whatsoever, made this a larger issue." > — FAIF Pg9 > Eben Moglen, Columbia University law professor and Free Software Foundation general counsel. But it works. And it works because of Richard's philosophy of design." > — FAIF pg 184 ¶2, last lines... *** Ostrom's Law: A resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory. *** I wrote this essay in SimpleNote & Google Docs — neither of these tools are really open, Google docs is based on Etherpad, which is open... Simplenote's apps themselves are open source, but the underlying codebase isn't exactly... however, I have CCed this content > Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ *** What if we re-conceive the archive as a point of origin, as a birthplace for new works and a rebirthing venue for old works? - Rick pelinger *** Autoprogettazione? What other open source-y, commons-y stuff can I talk about, reference, visualize?!? *** Devon Calvin Tanvi Eli Heuer Crossland Braithwaite Eric Who else can I reach out to? Not more white guys!? Yana? Amanda? Karen Shea Rick Prelinger? Cooper Hewitt Typeface Guy? Mary otsuka? *** Colonialism, software, etc.? Adobe is equivalent to enclosure of the commons? Ala Linebaugh
Submission to AIGA DEC Surface Conference, Oct 20, 2022. https://educators.aiga.org/2022-dec-mini-conference-surface/
Open licenses, libre software, and the public domain in the classroom.
Cultural production has always been about remixing. We take inspiration from the world around us, and build on the work of others to create something new. In the digital age, this process has become even easier, with an ever-growing pool of available images, fonts, tools, and other resources.
As the field of graphic design has evolved, so too has the way we think about copyright and intellectual property. With the rise of the internet and social media, it's easier than ever to share our work with the world, easier to see and gather and reference creative inspiration from anywhere, and… even easier to infringe on the copyrights of others.
That's why it's important to understand the role that open licenses, libre software, and the public domain can play in contemporary graphic design — in the field and in the classroom. By utilizing and creating open, public resources, we can build a new design commons for everyone. This has cultural and educational upsides.
Open licenses, such as Creative Commons, allow us to share our work with others while still protecting our copyright. Libre software, such as Inkscape or Blender, is free to use and modify, making it a great option for collaborative projects. And the public domain provides a wealth of resources that we can use without fear of infringing on someone else's copyright or violating EULAs.
As educators, our role is the creation, cultivation, dissemination, and — sometimes — the protection of new ideas. Better utilizing free, open licenses and tools allows for a larger space where we can learn from each other and build upon the works of those who have come before us, and work alongside us.
FEEDBACK FROM REVIEWERS
Feedback from Reviewer 01: Highly relevant topic with clear connection to the design classroom. Reference to some of the key players and ideology of the history of alternate copyright would have beefed up the abstract. However, this is a rich topic perfect for a short paper.
Feedback from Reviewer 02: This proposal feels a bit wonky, in that it gets into the weeds with some of the more technical and less exciting elements of being a professional creative person. But it is important work, and I believe would be a popular topic at this conference. Remix culture and the democratization of design and communication tools together make this incredibly topical and relevant. This presentation feels like a manifesto or call-to-action, and I support it.
Feedback from Reviewer 03: I would suggest making the point of the paper a little clearer. I am confused if you mean to teach us about those commons we have access to now or talk about the benefits of those tools. It might also be a little of both. Overall, it sounds interesting and definitely of use to the design community with just a bit of clarification.
TECH SPECS AND PRESENTATION DETAILS
We are asking ALL presenters to submit their final presentations in PDF form, NO LATER than Monday October 10th. Please submit your final presentation to this this Google Drive folder.
We need presentations ahead of time so that we can keep the event running on time—there will be 34 different presentations, spread across 15 different sessions and 5 distinct rooms, all happening in a very short amount of time.
You are free to create your file in any software, but it should be sized 16:9 (1920 x 1080 pixels). Please also keep your file under 50 MB if possible.
Updated abstract:
A New Design Commons.
Open licenses, libre software, and the public domain in the classroom.
Cultural production has always been about remixing — or, as Kirby Fergesun says: Everything is a Remix. We take inspiration from the world around us, and build on the work of others, creating something new. In our digital age, this process is ever easier, with an constantly growing pool of available images, fonts, tools, and other resources to recombine. It is also ever easier to infringe on the copyrights of others. Modern copyright and software licenses act as the newest form of enclosure, making it impossible to create creative works remixed from the old.
That's why it's important to understand the role that open licenses, libre software, and the public domain can play in contemporary design — in the field and in the classroom. Through utilizing and creating open, public resources, we can build a new design commons for everyone. This has cultural and educational upsides.
Open licenses, such as Creative Commons, allow us to share our work with others while still protecting our copyright. Libre software, such as Inkscape or Blender, is free to use and modify, making it a great option for collaborative projects. Open fonts allow for more and more representation of languages and writing systems. And the public domain provides a wealth of resources that we can use without fear of infringing on someone else's copyright or violating EULAs.
As educators, our role is the creation, cultivation, dissemination, and — sometimes — the protection of new ideas. Better utilizing free, open licenses and tools allows for a larger space where we can learn from each other and build upon the works of those who have come before us, and work alongside us.
Things to reference?
2022-08-17 Revisions! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So, Adobe a >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A New Design Commons? Better Title? Make it more of a manifesto or call-to-action? A script for a lecture… do it sort of pecha kucha style? Remix a lot of video/images/texts somehow as the background visuals?
Do you know how to hook a room full of design educators into what you’re presenting? Quote Ellen Lupton…
In 2006 Ellen Lupton presented a talk at aTypi called Univers Strikes Back. The conclusion of this lecture was summed up in her Free Font Manifesto: What if every … (copy over text, maybe just use her image as the slide here?)
Dave Crossland read Dr. Luptons FF manifesto …
Dave crossland is now in charge of google fonts …
Google Fonts is PAYING type designers to make excellent fully featured, open source fonts that push technological boundaries and try to handle as many languages as is possible…
In Univers Strikes Back Dr. Lupton says about her book, thinking with type:
My book was never intended for experts. It is a book for everyone, because I believe that everyone on earth needs typography and can benefit from working with letterforms at the highest level.
If we expand this out, my goal is to reframe this idea in terms of design more generally. That everyone on earth needs design and would benefit from working with design tools at the highest level…
Now, onto the show.
Reference to some of the key players and ideology of the history of alternate copyright Remix culture and the democratization of design and communication tools together make this incredibly topical and relevant. This presentation feels like a manifesto or call-to-action >>>>
I come to you today with a prompt. That together we build a new collective design commons — tools, images, typography, and “recipes” — that we all share for creating better future possibles.
If the goal of academia is knowledge CREATION and DISSEMINATION, then perpetuating the “norm” of proprietary software and unusable, strictly copyrighted materials doesn’t really do this?
A more equitable and sustainable tomorrow requires sharing and remixing today…
The vernacular
Copy. Students often copy things to learn how to do them We copy style and aesthetics and solutions all the time When and why and how does it get a bad wrap? Why have we made it so hard to copy things?
I propose unlimited copying, but with reference.
Vernacular design was about common things by common people…
The trend in software as a service and proprietary, locked tools is another form of “land enclosure” - or that which killed off the physical commons…
Lawrence Lessig Richard Stallman Linus Torvald Loraine Furtner & Eric Schrijver Garth Braithewaite ???
A New Design Commons?
Do you know how to hook a room full of design educators? Quote Ellen Lupton…
In 2006 Ellen Lupton presented a talk at aTypi called _Univers Strikes Back_. In this talk, Dr. Lupton says about her book, thinking with type:
My book was never intended for experts. It is a book for everyone, because I believe that everyone on earth needs typography and can benefit from working with letterforms at the highest level.
If we expand this out, my goal is to reframe Ellen's message in terms of design more generally. That everyone on earth needs design and would benefit from working with design tools at the highest level…
If we as educators wish to create new knowledge; to actually teach the next generation(s) of designers, and to spread and disseminate our craft so as to make a difference, well, we need to embrace open, shareable framework(s) for design.
This work and thinking is _in progress_, rather than _finished_ research or designs… And maybe this is good: trying to figure out what exactly you're doing and designing is often more interesting than critiquing a design once completed...
Now, onto the show.
This talk is nothing new, it is a remix of all manner of other's writing and ideas and lectures — including my own.
Software as a service models — while perhaps "convenient" — are a form of intellectual enclosure. Models like Adobe Creative cloud deprive us our rights of access and privilege. This is the equivalent of running barged wire across the Great Plains. We've created an annoying block for our future access to the resources and tools of our discipline.
"The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, managed for collective benefit…" — this is a riff on Wikipedia's definition ...
If we are in the business of cultural production, of knowledge creation, and of passing on better possible futures, then we have to be thinking about "the commons" as design educators.
The commons is a term that is used to describe a shared resource that is available for everyone to use. Contemporaneously, the term is often used in the context of open source software or creative works, like those that are released under a Creative Commons license. The idea behind the commons is that when we all have access to and can use these resources, we can create something greater than what any one of us could create on our own. This is how cultural production has historically worked — so why not return to this?
One of the first and very technical typesetting tools for the world of computers was Donald Knuth's TeX and the accompanying Metafont. If you are in the practice of typesetting scientific documents or graduate thesis, TeX — or more likely its progeny, LaTex or ConTeXt … This has had legs, not because of force buy in, but because of technical superiority AND open-ness…
This is a fabulous typographic tool — why did no designer ever show this to me? Why did my college room mate that went on to become a biologist have to tell me about it? Why did I learn about Donald Knuth too late! I mean, this guy dreamed up variable fonts in the 80s…
Adobe and their subscription service are the latest kind of "enclosure" on the commons
The vernacular, common design by common people, of and for and from the commons.
Can we design this way anymore? I mean, trends still exist — but following a trend isn't the same as building upon the commons. (Why? And why not?)
Vernacular design, often this is
Dunne and Raby, critical design…
If we are critical of the status quo, if we are trying to create alternatives, well then we need alternative tools, alternative visual references, and alternative ways to share with and learn from each other.
The pursuit of uniqueness is devalued; dynamicism and flexibility are more important than originality, because originality itself is unattainable. … “Normcore is about adaptability, not exclusivity.”— 3.2 Normcore as Brand Strategy, https://libbymarrs.net/post-authentic-sincerity/graphic design being codified and converted into algorithmsABANDON YOUR PURSUIT OF AUTHENTICITY! Normalize copying... ...but only copy from the top. anticipate the theft of your intellectual property and time, so practice your own time theft and bootlegging. Conserve your energy by letting go of originality... *** > a commercial system bent on turning the free range intellectual culture that gave birth to computer science into a rude agglomeration of proprietary gated communities > — Free as in Freedom (v2.0); preface by sam Williams; pg vii > The notice was simple, something along the lines of \The printer is jammed, please fix it," and because it went out to the people with the most pressing need to fix the problem, chances were that one of them would fix it forthwith. > — FAIF, pg3 ¶2 L10 > A program would develop the way a city develops," says Stallman, recalling the software infrastructure of the AI Lab. \Parts would get replaced and rebuilt. New things would get added on. But you could always look at a certain part and say,Hmm, by the style, I see this part was written back in the early 60s and this part was written in the mid-1970s.'" > — FAIF, Pg5 ¶3 If something is good enough to solve your problems, is it not good enough to solve someone else's problems too??? > Why not share it out of a simple desire for good karma? This system of cooperation was being undermined by commercial secrecy and greed, leading to peculiar combinations of secrecy and co-operation. > Stallman later explained, \If he had refused me his cooperation for personal reasons, it would not have raised any larger issue. I might have considered him a jerk, but no more. The fact that his refusal was impersonal, that he had promised in advance to be uncooperative, not just to me but to anyone whatsoever, made this a larger issue." > — FAIF Pg9 > Eben Moglen, Columbia University law professor and Free Software Foundation general counsel. But it works. And it works because of Richard's philosophy of design." > — FAIF pg 184 ¶2, last lines... *** Ostrom's Law: A resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory. *** I wrote this essay in SimpleNote & Google Docs — neither of these tools are really open, Google docs is based on Etherpad, which is open... Simplenote's apps themselves are open source, but the underlying codebase isn't exactly... however, I have CCed this content > Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ *** What if we re-conceive the archive as a point of origin, as a birthplace for new works and a rebirthing venue for old works? - Rick pelinger *** Autoprogettazione? What other open source-y, commons-y stuff can I talk about, reference, visualize?!? *** Devon Calvin Tanvi Eli Heuer Crossland Braithwaite Eric Who else can I reach out to? Not more white guys!? Yana? Amanda? Karen Shea Rick Prelinger? Cooper Hewitt Typeface Guy? Mary otsuka? *** Colonialism, software, etc.? Adobe is equivalent to enclosure of the commons? Ala Linebaugh >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Things to think about: A lot of people are interested in the canon of white male dominated design culture, for the sake of the argument they just refer to this as the canon of design culture, but we all know what that has come to mean. Here open source design philosophically has a similar issue with what we may refer to as the capitalistic aesthetic, the term may need work, the concept here is that because sole institutions have deemed what looks good. Mr Keedy talked about how international style was becoming global style and how post authentic sincerity, a web essay I will send you, showed that norm core design has continued that trend, but that’s because things that are deemed Libre culture is not sexy or sleek. A New Design Commons The commons is a realm of resources that is open for anyone to use. This includes things like traditional knowledge, folklore, and works that have expired copyrights. A Design Commons is a project that aims to create a shared space for designers to build off each other's work and ideas in a more free, open, accepting environment. As educators, our role is the creation, cultivation, dissemination, and — sometimes — the protection of new ideas. Better utilizing free, open licenses and tools allows for a larger space where we can learn from each other and build upon the works of those who have come before us, and our contemporaries. This approach also increases access to people in need or people in novel contexts that traditional design systems may not be considering. it's about rethinking the entire design process from start to finish. We are freeing ourselves AND our ideas from the shackles of capitalism and opening up other possibilities. We are in a remix culture. Cultural creation is always a remix; lets embrace this. The beauty of most of the open licenses is that they aren’t about giving up copyright or ownership, they are about linking people together, linking ideas together. When we design using FLOSPD imagery and tools, we are making a statement that we are no longer willing to be limited by what the commercial software companies tell us is possible. We are saying that we can create our own designs, on our own — or on the planet's — terms. Sustainable graphic design brings with it lots of new technologies, new social structures, and new tools. The more these ideas, structures, and tools are shareable and remixable, the more that all life will benefit. So what does this all mean for the future of design? I believe that we are on the cusp of a new era of creativity, one in which FLOS tools and works will play a major role. This is the beginning of a new Design Commons, one that is based on collaboration, sharing, and sustainability. This requires we learn more about licensing, new tools and file formats, and adopt new ideas around the ownership of ideas. Academia is good place to incubate and protect this new direction. We are also contributing to the public domain — making it richer and more diverse for everyone. Another form of regenerative designing. Designers who understand and embrace Free/Libre Open Source (F/LOS) can create more meaningful work, freed from the shackles of capitalist design. We will explore what F/LOS is and how graphic designers can use it to their advantage. We will also discuss the ideological underpinnings of F/LOS and how they can benefit both the individual designer and society as a whole. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> A New Design Commons. Open licenses, libre software, and the public domain in the classroom. Open Source culture > solving ideas faster Promotes designer as author Educators. Classroom. Open Licenses. Why should we care. What is the benefit to students? What is the benefit to educators? Open source sharing, sharing your content, social good. Distribute the ownership. Image citation as social good. Why image citation is (and isn’t) important to the field of design Open source has helped out the field of computer science and development for decades. This could also help graphic designers, partially by bringing better access to universities and the underserved and underfunded. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Embracing the malleability of digital type, Open Source fonts allow one to open up, modify and appropriate their forms. Open Source fonts also enable new methods of open-ended collaboration. Using platforms like GitHub, fonts can now potentially invite contributions from anyone. Loraine Furter and Eric Schrijver work with MICA Baltimore’s students, remixing and extending Seb Sanfillipo’s Open Source typefaces. Along the way, they invent the protocols: how do we work together? https://furter.github.io/public-domain/ https://www.design-research.be/open-source/ http://fonts.github.io/typographic-collaboration/ https://i.liketightpants.net/and/no-one-starts-from-scratch-type-design-and-the-logic-of-the-fork >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Who am I? What do I do? What do I love about it? What do I hate about it? The three pillars? ME Sector of Cultural Production I am writing about… Something Timely/Something Timeless… The triad of the critic (the author), context (sector of cultural production), subject (who/what s being written about), and object (philosophical lens) are at the heart of convincing criticism > but how to get to fun criticism!!?? Timeless: THE COMMONS Who is the villain? [[Adobe]]? [[Capitalism]]? [[The Global Style]]? Lazy teaching? >>>>>>>>>>> Bibliography: [[A *New* Program for Graphic Design]], by [[David Reinfurt]] [[Copy This Book]], by [[Eric Schrijver]] [[New Modernisms]], by [[Ben Duvall]]
A New Design Commons?
As I was working on this talk, I woke up one morning to find that Adobe had acquired the company Figma for 20 billion dollars. One of my former students that works there wrote me:
Obviously, this sucks for the entire design community. Adobe has done a lot of harm to the design community with their exploitative pricing strategy and their refusal to fix existing products. Everyone, even students, are forced to use it not because they like the tools, but because Adobe is sort of the only option. It's great to see other design tools becoming more popular in recent years as people start finding alternatives. The tools we use influence what we make and dictate the people who have access to them. Having a diverse toolset to choose from is good. Even if Figma doesn't change much in the first few years, relying on just one company for design gives Adobe way too much power in dictating which people and how people design.— Amanda Yeh
Why bring this up? This concern: that we're forced to use something because there is a monopoly on our tools of creation, not because it's the best or even good, presents potential issues for the design industry at large.
If we hook onto this some other annoying things the internet public find with Adobe's practices:
There's a clear path here — we don't own these tools, we are granted access to them. And even paying our "rent" isn't always sufficient to keep access to them.
This is intellectual enclosure. And it seems to me a troubling signal…
In 2006 Ellen Lupton presented a talk at aTypi called _Univers Strikes Back_. In this talk, Lupton says about her book, thinking with type:
My book was never intended for experts. It is a book for everyone, because I believe that everyone on earth needs typography and can benefit from working with letterforms at the highest level.
If we expand this out, my goal is to reframe Ellen's message in terms of design generally. That everyone on earth needs design and would benefit from working with design tools at the highest level…
If we as educators wish to create new knowledge; to teach the next generation(s) of designers, and to spread and disseminate our craft so as to make a difference, well, we need to embrace open, shareable framework(s) for design. We need tools and content free of enclosure. Our teaching can influence each other, and the broader world around us if we return to more open ideologies. This to me is the "new design commons."
Who controls your design tools? Who controls your computer? Who controls your pedagogy? Is it you? Or is it some big company? Adobe? Apple? Google? Someone else???
So, to finish the op ed and get to something more concrete: I am against the apple and adobe hegemony, but I don't really want to talk about that in graphic design — I want to get be talking about how we take the recipes and resources we have and find more and better tools to build and make and share and remix them. Sure you COULD use the proprietary tools to make these recipes, but it would be even better to not! Why? Well, for a variety of reasons: its a critical act ala Dunne and Raby's critical design; its more accessible; its more equitable; we can turn more energy on solving real NEW problems, rather than resolving old problems…
What do I mean by a design commons? Basically that the recipe of a design work is shared for anyone to use.
A lot of the language around these things in contemporary culture comes from software — well, the last 40 years of software, Stallman's Free Software rants started in 1983!? But this is really just the way the world of cultural production has operated. Lawrence Lessig and the rest of the thinkers that put together Creative Commons were driven by this same return to how cultural artifacts used to be produced.
Stallman's Free Software Four Freedoms... - The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). - The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2). - The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Can they be better explained for creative production as: - Access to the source (recipe?): basically what are the raw materials you need to do this, and how can it be insured that users/community can access them? - vernacular design examples? - The ability to remix/redistribute work as one needs (provided proper credit!) - End to predatory vendor lock in - Increased collaboration
What are some Myths of the commons and open source? 1. No control of work - what can be added/removed from a specific project is controllable 2. Open is unsafe? 3. Everything is FREE as in Gratis - NO! The "recipe" might be free, but all the constituent parts might have costs associated - House building?
When we call software “free,” we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.” – https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
This is a key aspect of learning — we as design educators need to adopt this as part of our pedagogy right? If we want students to get the most of their time with us, but using "free" tools that are free in this way, we increase access to learning! Take a font for example — requesting the use of open source or libre fonts in a project prompt means that students not only can use the fonts however they see fit, they can also change nd customize the font, or look at the source files and learn something extra about how a font has been made!?
My interest in the commons is grounded in a desire for the conditions necessary to promote social justice, sustainability, and happy lives for all. As simple as that. – Massimo De AngelisBasically, free software combines capitalist, socialist and anarchist ideas. The capitalist part is: free software is something businesses can use and develop and sell. The socialist part is: we develop this knowledge, which becomes available to everyone and improves life for everyone. And the anarchist part: you can do what you like with it. – Richard Stallman, Talking to the Mailman, NLR 113, September–October 2018
Software as a service models — while perhaps "convenient" — are a form of intellectual enclosure. Models like Adobe Creative cloud deprive us our rights of access and privilege. This is the software equivalent of running barbed wire across the Great Plains, or walling in an English pasture. We can be cut off from these now rented tools at anytime. We've created a blockade for our future access to the resources and tools of our discipline.
"The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, managed for collective benefit…" — this is a riff on Wikipedia's definition ...
If we are in the business of cultural production, of knowledge creation, and of passing on better possible futures, then we have to be thinking about "the commons" as design educators.
The commons is a term that is used to describe a shared resource that is available for everyone to use. Contemporaneously, the term is often used in the context of open source software or creative works, like those that are released under a Creative Commons license. The idea behind the commons is that when we all have access to and can use these resources, we can create something greater than what any one of us could create on our own. This is how cultural production has historically worked — so why not return to this?
The vernacular, common design by common people, of and for and from the commons.
Can we design this way anymore? I mean, trends still exist — but following a trend isn't the same as building upon the commons. (Why? And why not?)
Vernacular design, often this is
Dunne and Raby, critical design…
If we are critical of the status quo, if we are trying to create alternatives, well then we need alternative tools, alternative visual references, and alternative ways to share with and learn from each other.
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ABANDON YOUR PURSUIT OF AUTHENTICITY! Normalize copying... but only copy from the top. anticipate the theft of your intellectual property and time, so practice your own time theft and bootlegging. Conserve your energy by letting go of originality...a commercial system bent on turning the free range intellectual culture that gave birth to computer science into a rude agglomeration of proprietary gated communities— Free as in Freedom (v2.0); preface by sam Williams; pg vii
If something is good enough to solve your problems, is it not good enough to solve someone else's problems too???
Why not share it out of a simple desire for good karma? This system of cooperation was being undermined by commercial secrecy and greed, leading to peculiar combinations of secrecy and co-operation.
Ostrom's Law: A resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory.
What if we re-conceive the archive as a point of origin, as a birthplace for new works and a rebirthing venue for old works?- Rick prelinger
Adobe is equivalent to enclosure of the commons? Ala Linebaugh
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I have CCed this content > Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
New Design Commons Bibliography
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Art and culture have always depended on appropriation and derivation. Creativity has always required sharing, imitation, and collaboration
This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.
- Woody Guthrie
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Lessons from LL
Ownership, respect to the creator, the remixer, etc. We don't want design share croppers...
Our lives are in part sharing activities. For this to happen we need well respected spaces of:
CC does this: mark your content with the freedoms. Some rights reserved world instead of all rights reserved
Build upon copyright, but the copyright doesn't KEEP you from copying!?
What is the system of freedom and sharing we should encourage?
These are similar to stallman's... actually CC was built upon those ideas... which in turn are just a return to our vernacular, cultural production past...
There is not much new in this talk, but I hope to have remixed it enough (Everything is a Remix)
I am worried … (Adobe/Venezuela) I am concerned that my tools can be turned off. (Adobe/Figma) I am concerned that any nw tool I enjoy will be gobbled up. (Adobe/Rings of Power) I am concerned that the makers of my tools care about nothing but money.
Cultural production is no a zero sum game.
There is an element of exploitation to all creativity. To appropriate is to take w/out permission
Three things you should do (to keep from culturally appropriating):
These are from Everything is a Remix too?
Copying is the wellspring of all creativity. Why do we hate copiers so much?
Familiar vs. Novel
New media created from old media = a remix.
The new is clearly comprised of the old.
And this is how everything works. Not just remixing, these are the basic elements of all creativity
If you accept/agree that “Everything is a Remix” (Kirby Fergesun)then we need to make sure that our classrooms are an open place for this to conitnue. "Nothing is origina" says Kirby Fergesun. From Bob Dylan to Steve Jobs, our most celebrated creators borrow and steal and transform. (ETISR)
More and more I see academic journals and book publishers adopting various kinds of open access content licenses. Valiz, a lot of cc non commercial, non derivative
this as least makes sharing a distributing knowledge and ideas better but without the derivative, without getting to remix the thing, this isn't free for remix, this is not free culture, just ???
I don't want to talk about software, I don't want to talk about licences. I want to talk about cultural resources that belong to all of us.
Mr. Keedy talks about a Global Style, a sort of affected modernism that now adorns all sorts of (in partiuclar cultural) instituion around the globe. I don't desire this sameness is this because of the tools? is this intellectual enclosure? Is this stylistic colonization of our techno-social overlords?
A commons to me is a place where yes, ideas may spread across culture, across socio-economic divide, sometimes may be appropriated, but the point is necessity, quality, love, new metaphor, doing something new, expanding knowledge. (Kirby Fergeson? Remix? Copy/Transform/Combine?)
Collaborate More, Share more
How to write The Four Freedoms except with a focus on cultural content, on cultural production?
Professors, students, we can share and dig more learn from each other and build on the shoulders of giants.
Don't want to los the trail of authorship. On the contrary, I'd hope this would make it more likely and easier to track ideas as thelineage doesn't need to be seen as secret. CCSA4
so this talk, this essay, the words are in a text file and its all CCSA. The slides are on penpot (links?) and anyone can fork and edit.
Share Alike: you can use this however you want as long as you can say where it came from ad
Stop hording your content. Are you really concerned with someone taking your syllabi and your projects? Minor form of intellectual turmoil?
An informal intellectual commons
Vernacular: How Buildings Learn
Same process as open source software. Many eyes make light work (ala, Eric Raymond and The Cathedral and the Bazaar). Rapid iteration and prototyping and error finding and fixing. The right person to find problems and the best person to solve problems aren't likely the same person (again, more TCATB reference). Stewart Brand and his “satisfice” ideas. Stewart Brand describes the maintaining and building and renovating overtime of buildings in his book...
Do you want the metaverse really? do you want corporate controlled augmented reality life? what do you want?
Open tools and open culture
Dunne and Raby "Against the status quo"
if the status quo is proprietary tools and intellectual enclosure, then to design alternatives to that we need a critical praxis: Use liberated tools and resources from the world of free culture — and then KEEP them free, don't also enclose them ala Disney.
new solutions to old problems vs. old solutions to old problems and using energy to do totally new things
“If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don't bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.”
AKA Gravity Battery
Newton Machine appears to be Auger's name for his prototypes of gravity batteries.
Online therapist? mental health/wellness coach? I don't know I found a few of his blog posts and found them somewhat helpful.
So who cares; stop worrying so much about finding "the" way!?
No one wakes up with the goal of destroying the planet… Yet each day our collective choices do just that.
End poverty in all its forms everywhere
NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Part of the U.S. Department of Commerce
Related:
The instructions I followed to get TiddlyWiki working for this repo: https://tiddlywiki.com/#Installing%20TiddlyWiki%20on%20Node.js
Skipping steps: what steps are being skipped? how can I make a bit more linear of a connection???
Students get lost; sometimes I have no clue what he's talking about it...
how to help people make more connections???
Vernacular buildings: contribute to the buildings over time!?
so here are some explanations; we have to liberate the academically oppressed; libre or gratis
Innovators we’ve historically documented in the west are known for novel visuals, but got to those novel visuals through new ideological territory; through experimenting with different ways of thinking. Avant garde visuals stemming from these movements were the result of the ideas (or ideals) to come out of their novel thinking, not necessarily the main ideas themselves. Our past is not about style for style’s sake, but style that illuminates a theoretical position (or at least style that is arrived at from a thought process, from a set of values, or from some set of hypotheses).
These are not Peaking Power Plants
They are Base Load, but base load isn't a useful power generation concept anymore.
Know your fish?
Ala “In the Laboratory With Agassiz,” by Samuel H. Scudder and OBT: Mindfullness: Observing
Artist, Technologist
Omayeli is an artist and technologist from Nigeria currently playing with data at the Recurse Center in NYC. Her most recent projects include Face the Music, a Glitch app that lets you make and record music with your facial expressions, and Art Connoisseur, a Twitter bot that interprets and comments on historical art.
Jun 14, 2013
My father used to take our lawn mower to the small engine repairman. Here was this guy in his garage-turned-shop surrounded by mowers, outboards, dirt-bikes, and various unidentifiable mechanical contraptions — and he knew how to make them all work! I respected that when I was a kid. I respect that now as an adult. Few others these days seem to. My father (and most of my childhood friends’ fathers) seemed to know either a) how to fix something, or b) that person in town best suited to fix whatever they could not. Where is that knowledge now?
I’ve been trying to fix a lot of broken things around my house lately, so “mending” has just generally been on my mind. It’s also meant that most days over the last several weeks have required a trip to the neighborhood hardware store (thank god there actually is a neighborhood hardware store) for some kind of glue, tool, or clamp. This immediately sheds light on one of the problems of repairing things: it can take an incredible amount of time. Besides being time intensive, it can seem monetarily expensive too — buying the right tools or hiring a handyman, technician, or repairman seems like more expense than just buying a new toaster or bookshelf.
I find no satisfaction in having to go out and buy a new “stuff” (pairs of jeans, sunglasses, shoes, dressers, bookshelves — whatever “stuff” you might have around) every time a thing breaks or wears out. I do feel an actual reward, despite the inconvenience, when I’ve repaired something — my things are fixed, and fixed by my own doing (or my having had the smarts to find a skilled person to fix them — philosophically “I” still fixed it). It might not be “perfect” anymore, but it is definitely more mine. The objects become more meaningful: I have something of myself (or of the friend or handyman who helped with the repair) in the object now, and I hopefully know a little bit more about the construction or function of the repaired thing.
Once you start mending things you notice that there are always more things to mend. The hardships one must endure to “mend” are enough that I can see why we’ve moved from a repairing culture towards a replacing culture. We don’t fix things because we are convinced culturally to replace them, and the replaceable things we buy aren’t really designed to be fixable in the first place (either by being too ephemeral [cheap electronics] or being intentionally unrepairable [expensive iPods]) — so we lose the option, and with that the ability, to mend things in the first place.
A good teacher helps students realize that simply having access to tools does not result in expertise. Understanding a tool takes patience, time, and practice. We must practice using software, seeing accurate form, and crafting ideas just like we had to practice drawing, bicycling, or piano playing. This takes time. The process is frustrating. A good teacher integrates practice as part of applying a tool to a larger idea, not just practicing the tool itself (facilitating understanding over mere learning). Students should be encouraged to spend time outside of class practicing their making and practicing their thinking with new and different tools. Explorations following that encouragement may lead to less-than aesthetically wonderful results. This is not failure. Not everything need end with perfect, precise materials.
Design educators don’t usually teach letterpress as a technique. In fact, we rarely bother physically printing anything nor go through the trouble of rubbing letraset at different sizes down to make mockups and better understand the printer/designer relationship. We just jump into using Illustrator and InDesign as form making tools, and then make everything from sketches to “finished” things almost entirely with digital tools totally abstracted from the physical printing process. We show students the software interface for doing the tasks that people until very recently had to know how to do in some other way, typically analog and very hands-on. WYSIWYG tools for web-design are basically the same.
I know Dreamweaver is historically NOT a good GUI/WYSIWYG editor, and experiences with a bad tool might make it seem that this road is one best left untravelled. However, there are now a plethora of online services and site-builders that allow for fairly high fidelity drag-and-drop and point-and-click site building. Familiarity with stuff like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign is then directly translatable to the building of decent websites.
Within a few years there will be powerful visual web editors and truly very few people really will have to know how to literally code to build rudimentary (and probably fairly complex) sites and apps — just like few practicing designers have used any other creation tool for printed works other than InDesign.
Dreamweaver’s past problems revolved around creating dirty code and perpetuating out of date practices. If new tools are based on contemporary ideals, and produce the kinds of markup contemporary standards desire, there is no reason that said mythical tool couldn’t help to make understanding basics simpler, prototyping ideas faster, and allow for more creation in the digital realm by designers that are turned off by looking at plaintext documents.
What was kept in the transition from making print mockups and printed documents “by hand” to making them on the computer were all the concepts and principles of “Good Design.”
So, then the thing that is most important isn’t deciding between whether we teach coding or make use of a specific tool, but that we decide what “Good Design” means from a digital design, user experience, and interactivity perspective. Then it’s just figuring out how to explain and practice that regardless of the tools.
To then come full circle, you could actually learn HTML and CSS instead of any of these other things and at this point nearly omit the learning of InDesign. HTML/CSS is getting pretty amazing in the layout and typographic control departments. Coupled with a slick JS or other server setup that can render PDFs nicely from simple HTML/CSS instructions one can actually design printed works to a fairly high level of control with web technologies now — provided you want to learn a bit about setting up a server environment.
So,
“Only a spiral galaxy can bring forth new stars perpetually.”
OOKB: The Office of Kristian Bjørnard
This is the acronym for the "studio" that Kristian Bjørnard runs!?
related to F/LOS, F/LOSS, etc.
Open source is a flavor of Free/Libre stuff. Open source specifically refers to a more corporate friendly version of Free Software that Eric Raymond and some others thought would be an easier sell than GNU's GPL version! The MIT License is the most notable variation of open source licensing.
Open source these days sort of refers to ANYTHING that you're freely sharing and hoping other people just use for whatever they want. It also frequently is used incorrectly to refer to public domain things, or free, but not as in freedom things (incorrectly used re: GRATIS not LIBRE things).
A search for “Open Source Design” online returns The Open Source Design Manifesto by Garth Braithwaite, a designer working on open source projects at Adobe. Braithwaite’s manifesto made a simple starting point in understanding how F/LOS impacts graphic design. The manifesto reads:
I will:
- find opportunities to design in the open
- share my design experiences; both the good and the bad
- find time for meaningful projects
- openly participate in design discussions
- work with other designers by choice
- improve my toolbox
In a 2013 talk called “Designers Can Open Source,” Braithwaite explains actions and behaviors designers might adopt for the “open-ness” the manifesto aims to inspire. The main tenant is to share more: “Sharing process, especially the failures, really helps” and “post as you are working, show how things evolve.” This creates an ecosystem where designers are more collaborative and more open with their neighbors — more unselfconscious — making design knowledge more effectively shared. Taking Braithwaite’s ideas to heart, our class made sharing and communicating a goal. To facilitate this we moved our class’ project files to repositories on Github (Braithwaite mentions Github as a tool for sharing and collaborating for codebases, we tried it for designing). We wanted to earnestly “design in the open.”
aka OSP
A design collective in Belgium. Working at where designing and The Commons overlap.
The more we use open tools, the better they get. The more we use proprietary tools, the more the industry decides they're "standard" and the more likely they are to become monopolistic and stagnant!
One who uses F/LOS tools, content, systems, etc. Not just uses, but also contributes back to; participates in; creates their own open cultural output.
Elinor Ostrom's 8 rules for managing The Commons
We have seen and experienced that governments around the world can act on a global challenge, and that people can change their behaviour, in a very short amount of time. That should make us stubbornly optimistic about our collective capacity to design a more hopeful tomorrow
Plug into your hard-wired happiness
We live in a world where what we think of, what we invest in, is the outcome.

This comes from Stewart Brand explains the different speed various layers of society moves.
The job of fashion and art is to be froth—quick, irrelevant, engaging, self-preoccupied, and cruel. Try this! No, no, try this! It is culture cut free to experiment as creatively and irresponsibly as the society can bear. From all that variety comes driving energy for commerce (the annual model change in automobiles) and the occasional good idea or practice that sifts down to improve deeper levels, such as governance becoming responsive to opinion polls, or culture gradually accepting “multiculturalism” as structure instead of just entertainment.
wonderfully gone over here: https://www.noahbrier.com/archives/2018/08/framework-of-the-day-pace-layers/
and this: http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2015/02/11/stewart-brand-and-paul-saffo-at-the-interval/

Sometimes you need to suffer a certain amount to change and grow.
Develop a parallel design activity that questions and challenges industrial agendas because All design is ideological
Dunne and Raby Anthony Dunne Fiona Raby This leads to The Futures Cone, as well as Future Possibles
Artist, Designer, Environmental Inventor, Creator of spaces and natural sculptures
Early influential practitioner of Empowerment Education and community organizing
We need peaking power plants.
Flexible, on-demand, fast ramping power generation.
Meet need of the consumer, not the needs of the power companies/coal companies.
‘We should not see people and the planet in competition with each other’, says Johanna Fabrin. ‘Humans should be part of the equation, but not at the expense of everything else. We can only create a good life for people if we create a good life for the planet.’
These are people.
And, the things people do.
People go around doing people things. What exactly constitutes a person thing? when, if ever, are people NOT doing people things? Are there good or bad people things? or are people things inert? Can animals do people things? can people do non-people things?
Musician, Singer, Songwriter, Record Producer, Activist
Genesis
Someone designs thing X at time t if and only if:
- She imagine or describes X at t
- While supposing that X at least partially satisfies some set of requirements R under conditions C and
- Satisfying R is a problem for which
- X is a novel or original solution
paraphrased:
design is the intentional solution of a problem by the creation of plans for a new sort of thing […] we can now define the noun “design” as the problem-solving plan generated by this activity.
Ted Talk by Srikumar Rao
We all strive for happiness – but we spend most of our lives learning to be unhappy, says Srikumar Rao. In this practical talk, he teaches how to break free of the "I'd be happy if ..." mental model, and embrace our hard-wired happiness.
Sidney Poitier and Peter Bogdanovich were geniuses of the Hollywood system who, with great success and frustration, worked to transform it in the same era.
both were involved in attempts by groups of artists to take advantage of the waning power of the studios and assert their own independence
“Our politics co-evolved with a century of fossil fuels, and so a huge portion of our regulations still favor the incumbent, which is fossil fuels,” Saul Griffith, a scientist and founder of a nonprofit, said.
from NYtimes
This is part of the problem
Outcome Based Thinking & Have-Do-Be
We define our life in the following way: here I am, here is where I want to go, here are the steps to get there, and if I don't then I fail.
Environmentalism isn't fully encompassing enough.
Parts Per Million. Unit of measure.
or, Why Free Culture makes sense (cents?)
Utilizing free — free as in freedom — resources as a designer has a number of immediate practical implications.
There are however differences in the “free-ness” or liberated ness or open ness of works of cultural production. There is the Public Domain — and so these things are useable by anyone for anything and you need not even ask for permission or credit the works. Then there are the various kinds of Creative Commons licenses (CC0 = Public Domain); there is also the Free Art License, and there are also various software licenses that in different degrees might also apply to creative art and design works (for example, OFL applies to typefaces, though you could also use GPL or Apache or MIT for typefaces, as they are really computer files/programs).
Free (No cost/Gratis) as useful side effect of Free (Freedom/Libre) cultural works:
If you are working for say, a non-profit cultural organization, you might need to budget concious — maybe they can't afford a typeface license for a ton of computers, or at all; maybe they have no photo/art budget; maybe you want to do something else cool that requires money for printing/production, and so need to save on tools and images and new type — This is another place "free" comes in!? And it can even be a selling point for what you want to do.
Bjarke Ingles coined this phrase (i think) in a talk I saw him give — basically the idea is that you dream a utopian dream, but you find ways that you can make it real with what already exists around us. How can we take the materials and systems already available to us, hack and scramble them up, replace others, and make a utopian reality of the future immediately manifest in our present.
Questions
Research for class:
Make your own plastic recycling equipment and stuff
Precision in contemporary design is not about who can make the most meticulously perfect artifact, but about who can master enough myriad skills and techniques that their vision and talent is applicable to any medium — we shall embrace trans-media comfort. (Formal perfection is still a valiant aim, but it is no longer the only goal.)
when you’re aware of the tool as a tool, as an object in itself, that’s presence-at-hand
You have to figure out what’s really important. What’s going to make it into this initial release? This forces a constraint on you which will push you to make tough decisions instead of hemming and hawing.
https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/02.4-fix-time-and-budget-flex-scope
From Merriam Webster:
Noun...
I particularly like that first definition: a question raised for inquiry, consideration, or solution
A Problem is a question raised for inquiry, consideration, or solution
That changes what Problem Solving vs. Problem Finding is for sure.
This is a good way to think about designing — are we really problem solvers? or do the best artists and designers really have to be problem finders first and foremost? meaning that we can seek out things in need of further inquiry, consideration, or (sometimes) "solutions"
“Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.”
My worst enemy.
People I know who are Product Designers:
Providing amazing solutions and concrete data about the best ways to get CO2 back out of the atmosphere (this is what drawdown is intended to mean) and into various carbon sinks
Our mission is to help the world reach “Drawdown”— the point in the future when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline, thereby stopping catastrophic climate change — as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.
Try to make visuals from external contexts, GD that looks the same?
Learning to work within constraints
For the first hour (is an hour long enough??)
Find all the used/waste paper that you can find. Search recycling bins, your old flatfiles, etc.
Design! So, how much paper did we collect? how many copies do we need to make? let's figure out a page count then. Do we want to print double sided? french fold?
Once we have a page count, well, what is going to be our content, and how will we use the space and divy up the work?
Go over the sustainable print guidelines, how can we let the constraints of less, etc. influence design decisions/directions? does this relate to the content at all?
This is related to but different than Prompt ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ — This pulls the prompts I have actually used for the different daily writings from the fields themselves, it isn't just a list of potential prompts...
Proprietary software developers have the advantages money provides; free software developers need to make advantages for each other.
Creative works that no longer fall under the purview of copyright. Cultural production that can be used by anyone for anything.
Publics and Counterpublics by Michael Warner
Public Culture (2002) 14 (1): 49–90.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281562585_Publics_and_CounterPublics
If you can’t fit everything in within the time and budget allotted then don’t expand the time and budget. Instead, pull back the scope.
https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/02.4-fix-time-and-budget-flex-scope
Better, happier, more fulfilling: this is what quality shall mean in sustainable design. The aim is to provide quality to everyone in elegant, elemental ways. Our goal is a higher standard. Flimsy, inferior goods and services have no place in our sustainable future.
A good teacher (and a good designer) must believe that one thing is better than another. However, a good teacher doesn’t assume that design results in only one sort of “nice” thing. When using design as a critical tool, there must be room for the “ugly” and the “negative” in addition to the “beautiful” and the “uplifting.” Ugly and negative aren’t the same as “bad” and can still be of quality. A good teacher must help each student explore and articulate “goodness” in their own eyes — in the works students make themselves and in work that students admire.
Duplicate or alternative for Questions?
To create is not just to create objects … Coming up with a question is also creation—the very essence of a question is its power to elicit the possibilities of reply, to collect a variety of thoughts… I believe that the richness of thinking may be the critical resource needed to give this world a future.
One of the most mythologically great designers of the 20th century.
Books:
Quotes:
We have to build out of natural, renewable materials that store carbon, and minimize the upfront carbon emissions of everything we make or build. We also have to radically decarbonize our operating energy sources. We have to cut back on our use of fossil fuels to the point that the oil and gas companies are forced to leave it in the ground because there is so little demand. That means getting our homes off gas, and again, the best way to do that is Passivhaus.
This is the most important, far more so than Net Zero. The best way to achieve this is through the Passivhaus standard. Yes, air tightness is critical to it, but try it, you'll like it. As far as I am concerned, it should be the bare minimum standard if we are going to not fill that carbon bucket and break 1.5°.
Another reason for going Passive House. It's simple and doesn't need any fancy technology or robots. Just lots of insulation and really careful, simple detailing, careful assembly. It is the ultimate in low tech design, just sitting there, passively storing heat or keeping it out. There are a few fans and filters for fresh air, but that's it.
How much do you need? We have to build less stuff, extract fewer materials. We have to design the places we live and work so that we can get between them on foot or bike. But we also have to design them so that they are sufficiently resilient to adapt and protect us in changing conditions.
A response on Are.na to a flippant block I created.
I agree with the overall idea of teaching design students to be 'active parts of the world' rather than industry cogs. But I think there must be a better way to make the argument than this:
“Design as a personal, ideological, or political action is important and useful; design as an industry is not.”
Not because I think design in the latter sense is important, but because I'm not convinced design in the former sense is that important either. At least, not design specifically. Political, ideological, and personal activity in general have value and significance, and that should be enough justification for trying to instill them in students. This is the whole idea of a liberal arts education, in my eyes.
To hone in on design specifically as a force of change is to unduly assume it has some special contribution to make. It seems to me the only reason designers are inclined to do this is because they can't see beyond their own discipline, and they have to feel like their own discipline is doing something uniquely important.
Part of some more complex conversation that also includes commentary on https://www.are.na/block/10063082
My initial comment,
“Design as a personal, ideological, or political action is important and useful; design as an industry is not.”
was in response to some frustrations I have as a professor. Namely where students show up in a design classroom specifically to be shown or taught how to be a part of design AS an industry. The interest is in getting a design job, not becoming a designer. Well, becoming a designer because it is seen as a discipline that directly has jobs with what you've learned in the title.
when I say "Design as a personal, ideological, or political action is important and useful" I mean that "design" in and of itself is, as Glenn Parsons put it in The Philosophy of Design, "the intentional solution of a problem, by the creation of plans for a new sort of thing" — to me for design defined this way to be useful, or important, is that one's designing does connect to some personal or ideological action — if you are intentionally solving problems for someone else that you think are the wrong problems to solve, well, I don't think that is very important. Design the industry is often about solving external problems that you as designer have little connection to, or may even be ideologically against if you pause and think for a moment. And they might even be "problems" that the client doesn't really have connection to other than they think there is money to be made.
In another post/comment chain you mention a metaphor relating design to creative writing. I think this is a good way to think about things. Creative writing is a skill that anyone can benefit from, any job, any place that a person interacts with other people, if you are a practiced writer you can improve said situation. Particularly if you can be creative in understanding the vernacular and contexts of a situation and deliver the message accordingly. I see graphic design, or just more generally design, similarly. Any situation, any interest, it can be improved through design.
I don't mean this from the business perspective, like how every startup has a chief design officer or whatever now, and design is seen as a way to monetize more aspects of a persons time or psyche…
I digress.
Now you mention elsewhere how "design" is or isn't particular things. I guess maybe to me that's another issue I have with "design as industry" — it does fairly heavily limit the context for counts or doesn't count as "design." Many of my favorite artists and chefs and scientists, when they explain their processes, I say to myself, that's a design methodology, I get how they do their craft, their process makes sense, the output is a plate of food, or an observable experiment, but ...
Maybe this can best be summed up as Doing Design is Important; Being a Designer is not.?
When you’re using a tool to accomplish something and you’re not aware of it, that’s readiness-at-hand
See if its useful to tweak Soren Bjornstad's demo – make a read/unread sources list – does it matter if its been re-read or anything else? how about things I frequently recommend to students or to other designers?
Setting expectations is key. If you try to fix time, budget, and scope, you won’t be able to deliver at a high level of quality. Sure, you can probably deliver something, but is “something” what you really want to deliver?
https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/02.4-fix-time-and-budget-flex-scope
Change is your best friend. The more expensive it is to make a change, the less likely you’ll make it.
When it comes to web technology, change must be easy and cheap.
https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/03.2-lower-your-cost-of-change
Given our current climate crisis we need shareable, remixable, repurposable solutions for adaptation and localization anywhere. In this spirit, we must return to a conceptual model of cultural production that values freedom to use and reuse and remix things.
NK 1520 .R47 2023
There's no hope for a sustainable future without Care and Repair becoming as sexy and seductive as Use and Lose. In this very timely book we have some smart creative minds riffing on how to start this re-imagining — Peter Gabriel
Natural and manmade. Ecological and Technical. Something required to do something else.
Reverberation Crosswalks are fun, brightly colored crosswalks. Just paint on cement and asphalt they still signal a sustainable vector forward. The neighborhood around this intersection is now more walkable. You can't not notice the crosswalks. They contribute to life flourishing in the city. This concept is cheap; fast; easily replicated; can be customized for region, culture, available materials, etc. (Graham Coreil Allen)
Founder of Prelinger Archives. Writer, Filmmaker, and long time advocate for the public domain.
RiP! a Remix Manifesto is a documentary film.
What is a ritual? Why are they important? how can they be harnessed to affect behavior usefully?
French philosophe, literary theorist and critique, prevalent in discussions around Post-modernist interpretations of Ferdinand Saussures ideas around signs and semiotics
Death of the Author is an important text for Graphic Design history and theory.
Follow Allard—transportation analyst—on a deep dive into exciting real-world climate solutions. From electric vehicles and trains to innovations in aviation, Allard reimagines a smarter, faster transportation system around the world.
Designer, Belgian, Living in London. De-constructor of conceptual ideas and graphic forms. Has a great Walker Insights lecture.
Sara De Bondt is the epitome of a cultural designer, combining a love of contemporary typography with a deep investigation into the history of graphic design. Through her design practice, which consists of client-based work, designing and editing books, and curating conferences, she is consistently contributing to the critical discourse. Her playful aesthetic is always idea-based, typography-driven, and completely fresh. Her clients include the Wiels Centre for Contemporary Art in Brussels and Nottingham Contemporary as well as projects for the V&A, the Barbican, London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, Camden Arts Center, and MIT Press. Most recently, she took over the art direction of Tate Etc. magazine. In 2008, De Bondt cofounded Occasional Papers, a nonprofit publishing house investigating the histories of architecture, art, design, film, and literature. In 2009, she curated the conference the Form of the Book, which explored the past, present, and future of book design. She received her MFA from Sint-Lukas, Brussels, and completed postgraduate research at the Jan van Eyck Academie. Prior to opening her own studio in 2004, De Bondt worked for Daniel Eatock's Foundation 33 in London. She has taught design at the Royal College of Art, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and KASK School of Art.
Copresented by the Walker Art Center and AIGA Minnesota.


Now, how do we evolve this schematic for the Sustainability focuses Art/Design college???
Designer, Author, Professor of Design for Sustainability
We want the functions objects provide, not the objects themselves. To do this, our appliances and tools must be approached in terms of “services, not stuff” and “use, not own.” The idea of services is against intentional obsolescence and for reusability and repairability.

Setting fire to long extinct life-forms is the human race's primary industrial enterprise
there are so many things we're NEXT to; so many systems we connect to or interlink with; that have so much burden; the GDer weighs in, but we don't get to do anything about this stuff...
its just jumping to conclusions and making something to fulfill deliverables and complete something on time...
Green graphic design is about using the power of design to shift the status quo toward sustainable solutions.
This is a TiddlyWiki and this is a note within my wiki.
I can link to things that I've written before Content is King
An Idea I've had...

“Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means.”
Attributed to Albert Einstein
a cross-reference book of information on some esthetic boundaries: consisting of a bibliography into which are inserted a fragmented text, art works, documents, interviews, and symposia, arranged chronologically and focused on so-called conceptual or information or idea art with mentions of such vaguely designated areas as minimalism, anti-form, systems, earth, or process art, occurring now in the Americas, Europe, England, Australia, and Asia (with occasional political overtones), edited and annotated by Lucy R. Lippard
NOTES:
Conceptual art means work in which the idea is paramount and the material form is secondary, lightweight, ephemeral, cheap, unpretentious, and/or "dematerialized" (pg vii, ¶3, L1)
The times were chaotic and so were our lies. We have each invented our own history, and they don't always mesh; but such messy compost is the source of all version of the past. (pg vii, ¶5, L1)
Old wooden toys screwed to wall as a mounting point for a painters/clip on lamp
Foraged bamboo, 5 gallon bucket, found rock/brick rubble, painters/clip on lamp, found lampshade, u bolt
found piece of maple, painters/clip on lamp, extension cord.
Tension of cord keeps lamp in its temporary place.
Related, but not quite a duplicate of Questions
Items tagged with So Many Questions are tiddlers that themselves contain a lot of questions...
While, the items tagged with Questions are individual questions > that tag should become Question perhaps instead???
Okay, so Sustainable Graphic Design doesn't exist. We can look at this from a couple of different angles.
If we keep the definition of "sustainable graphic design" as design for the welfare of all life (or maybe maintaining spaceship earth?) then there are some things to think about in this vein...
If graphic design maintains the status quo, really in any way, then it just isn't sustainable. We can't help promote or maintain fossil fuels, inefficient energy infrastructure,
Meaning, from the sun.
Solar is also not a great Peaking Power Plants solution, at least not at the end of the day when people are returning home.
Solar is useless or providing end of the day peak demand
Low Tech Magazine's solar powered website signals how we might visualize energy usage; how we might enable new systems of powering our tools; questions if we really need constant connection; and how aesthetic choices correlate to physical resources even in the digital sphere. (Kris De Decker & Marie Otsuka)
Better, happier, more fulfilling: this is what quality shall mean in sustainable design. The aim is to provide quality to everyone in elegant, elemental ways. Our goal is a higher standard. Flimsy, inferior goods and services have no place in our sustainable future.
Sometimes we don’t need a better solution to a current problem. Sometimes we need to design a better system all together.
Lectures, examples, demos, speakers, videos, readings, and discussions are all great — but can get in the way of what class is also about: providing structured time to practice designing. A good teacher needs to know when to step back, let the students dig into their projects, and wander around the room peering over shoulders and offering small bits of individualized advice.
Related:
Helpful TiddlyWiki teacher. Minnesotan. I only know of him from a few TW related youtube posts!
Things like his ZettleKasten tour and his Grok TiddlyWiki stuff have been invaluable resources to my playing around.
An R. Buckminster Fuller-ism
Earth is a self contained object. Other than a bit of solar radiation and the spare meteor, no matter enters earth's systems – we must make do with what we have, there is no resupply mission for spaceship earth.
Special Topics in Graphic Design: Open Source ran from January to May of 2018 at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). The course asked students to explore F/LOS software and ideologies in producing graphic design. Other than “earnestly experiment with F/LOS tools,” the main projects were working with the MICA library on an identity and print materials, and collaboratively writing, designing, and printing a book that was exemplary of and about our F/LOS exercises and experiments. Each week we discussed how F/LOS’s ideas and technologies might serve the students’ (and the greater design communities) needs better than mainstream offerings.
Three lectures and workshops at MICA inspired the class’ origins. Loraine Furter and Eric Schrijver, members of a collective known as “Open Source Publishing,” ran two workshops: one using public domain resources in one’s design practice, and one customizing open source fonts. David Crossland of Google Fonts visited MICA and demoed new open source variable typefaces that Google and Type Network , collaborated on. Ending his lecture, Crossland explained how he ended up working at Google Fonts in the first place: being a lover and supporter of F/LOS. With Furter and Schrijver’s examples for how design practice might embrace F/LOS, and through casual conversation with Crossland about his libre font and software background, F/LOS ideals and tools felt like good exploratory territory for a graphic design course.
Ongoing exploration of building lamps with found and/or ephemeral materials
How in the moment do you solve a challenge of "needing light"
How also might the materials used for the temporary lamp be unmodified; go back to being those same raw materials again when the lamp's need is over?
Executive, educator, writer and life coach Srikumar S. Rao asks, "Are you ready to succeed?" – and in his famous course "Creativity and Personal Mastery," he teaches his students how to do so.
The cradle to cradle books are signs signaling sustainability. C2C is a "technical" nutrient — the entire book is made to be taken back into a production process — the pages are plastic, the ink reclaimable. The Upcycle is instead a biological nutrient, made to decompose and return to the cycles of nature. Paper, ink, binding, is all made to biodegrade… This fully signals the ideology of Cradle to Cradle. (Michael Braungart and William McDonough (with the design Paul Sahre))
Okay, if an important part of stoicism is recognizing life's limitations, does that help one understand or accept anything about sustainability and the ways that it is useful to participate with nature and Spaceship Earth's limitations?
There is a lot of working happening in the static site generation realm. I’ve played with a number of options: Jekyll, Ruhoh, Nanoc, and Wintersmith to name a few. A quick google search will yield literally 10’s if not 100’s of more options…
The gist is this: write up your content in Markdown and YAML, create a few templates, then compile those via Ruby, Python, Node.js, or similar, and you are left with a directory of static HTML, CSS, and JS files that are now your site. Easy. Painless. Done.
Sort of.
Its a cool idea. So far however, they all seem fairly focused on making a blog easier to upkeep, not actually build a whole site. I’m frustrated in that outside of using only a single directory of date sorted files and a few root level pages, none of the generators I have played with tried do very well at correctly managing or compiling a whole site. Multiple directories, nested sub-directories, different kinds of “content-types,” any sort of semi-advanced information architecture quickly shows the weaknesses of all the tools I’ve tested.
I’m looking for something that does the compiling, AND can figure out my information architecture. I’m happy telling it basic stuff in some sort of metadata file — some sort of YAML file that structures how things nest or what different content types do — but I just need it to actually understand what I am telling it.
What my colleagues and I are onto these days is trying to take this idea and run with it… so maybe we’ll figure it out at some point ourselves. We have some custom solutions do what we want (http://www.rwdfoundation.org is running on a custom version of ruhoh that adds the additional nesting I was talking about more correctly), but turning it into something that will work for any site is still in the distance. I guess we will just see what the future brings.
Curator, Philosopher, collaborator.

Super Normal: Sensations of the Ordinary
Define sustainability: Define Sustainability & Define: Sustainability > anything else!!??
“To call a work of architecture or design beautiful is to recognize it as a rendition of values critical to our flourishing. A transubstantiation of our individual ideals in material medium.”
— Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness, pg. 100
In The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton provides some insights useful in trying to solve aesthetic quandaries around sustainability and formal beauty. Beautiful design embodies and sustains the values you hold dear.
Following Botton's thinking, sustainable designers should see the non-sustainable as the less-than beautiful, even the ugly. Only truly sustainable things — meaning objects and forms that inspire sustainable ideals — should count as beautiful. Beautiful things ARE sustainable things, and vice versa.
Burgeoning sustainabilitists wishing to de-clutter their lives may come across a piece by Bruce Sterling that echoes similar sentiments. Sterling outlines four criteria for sorting through the objects you own so as to decide what to keep and what to discard as a part of your new, sustainably designed life.
If an object in your possession fits into the first three categories (beautiful, sentimental, or utilitarian things), then it is worth keeping. If it falls into "Everything Else" you must be rid of it. Sterling is interested in these categories from the point of view that sustainabilitists should have the right stuff — right meaning the best functioning, most meaningful, prettiest stuff. By virtue of being objects that you really need or want to have around just by being so lovely to look at, these things rise above just plain detritus to become more valuable, more sustainable objects (even if it just means you replace them less often).
When Alain de Botton talks about beauty in design and architecture, I think his “beauty” encompasses all of Sterling's top 3 categories.
But, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This starts to explain why “what does sustainable graphic design looks like?” is such a hard question to answer. It also explains why Sterling found the need to break his list of criteria four separate entities, and not just "beautiful things" and "everything else." To me, a nice hammer is functional, utilitarian, and beautiful. To you, it might just be functional. The paintings and drawings I find beautiful are what another might find ugly. The things I find sentimental are probably unique to me. Not everyone has the same idea of what should be sustained as not everyone thinks the same things are beautiful.
Is there really then no “correct” aesthetic choice?
±±±±±±±±±
See Also:
Most designers are in the representation business, so their first response has been to design a poster about sustainability. But the transition to sustainability is not about messages, it’s about activity.
Sustainability is not about individualism; not about individual actions. It's about the collective. How can trust in our world and other people improve the contexts? Our communal success is just that – communal. So we need to think about our own success in ways that are more than purely individual.
See JOMO p63 ¶2 l22, The Joy of Missing Out (JOMO)
Okay, so this isn't individual action — it is collective action
How does a designer DO any of this — or rather how do I? What is a design success that is more than individual; I guess that means more than about the designer; more than just the design. The design is the inflection point? the design is the doorway to go from individual to collective solutions? the designer gives up caring about THEMselves in the relationship; its not about portfolio or "coolness" its about what people need.
(There is an article on the creative independent about this!?)
How does design BUILD trust? We need to trust in each other, trust in our institutions, trust in the world. This needs to be REAL trust. True Trust? (what is trust!?) Design can easily build the IDEA of trust, present all the necessary signifiers for trust (I mean, this is the goal of branding in general right???) BUT we don't want just some superficial signifiers of trust we need ACTUAL trust.
I don't know what to do to do this. Designing with people not for them.
Does Design, When Everybody Designs fit in here?
Collecting an are.na board about this...
What kinds of aesthetics are the most sustainable?
What are good ethics? how does one visualize these things? what about an ideology is translateable into visuals?
What makes Sustainable Design different from commonplace design? unadjectived design? status quo design? just design?
From 020240102125531 Entry Baillie Mishler Notes: Expect more. Sustainable design should bring more utility, more performance, and more protection
Is there such a thing as sustainable development? does Development as a word sort of clash, cause friction, with the idea of sustainability?
Graphic Design that is somehow sustainable. Graphic Design in the service of the welfare of all life. Graphic Design that helps life to flourish.
In my perfect vision for the future, this is what regular, status quo, graphic design just becomes... so when you said Graphic Design you would mean things that specifically are Sustainable — not what we mean now, where the sustainable is an extra adjective and so implies that you must do more or do something different...
If sustainable graphic design is design in service of what we want to sustain — how do you decide what's worth sustaining? (if we want to sustain the status quo, then that is what sustainable graphic design is — hmmm!?).
Designer Bruce Mau has a similar description for the goals of Massive Change: “Our project is the welfare of all life as a practical objective.”
So, this is what we'll use as our definition of Sustainable Graphic Design: sustainable graphic design is “graphic design in support of all life flourishing,” or, “graphic design for the welfare of all life.”
Sustainable design does not exist was at first pessimistic. Is design all just trash? does design create waste period, so nothing is sustainable? Anything we make is unmaking so much else; so all design is unsustainable.
But! Sustainable design does not exist came to signify an alternative; it didn't exist because it was ephemeral! because it reused existing objects in a new way! that it left no trace! that it was part of a vernacular process! suddenly this felt like a prompt for new works; new questions! A useful constraint for future work.
Where does this thinking lead us? We can think of all our designs as living within the context of nature, and we can think of how they might look or what they might be made of or what audience a design might be serving… Is there a clearer way to articulate what "Sustainable Graphic Design" is?
Dunne & Raby are proponents of “Critical Design,” or design that “provides a critique of the prevailing situation through designs that embody alternative social, cultural, technical, or economic values.” Graphic design made for the welfare of all life is different than status quo design. So, sustainable graphic design is not just design that helps people and our planet, but design that is also critical of existing social, cultural, technical, AND economic structures (sort of all the options of the Dunne & Raby list).
All life flourishing is not the traditional goal of business, culture, and design. Sustainable Graphic Design defined this way is different than "regular" cultural production.
Throughout western art and design history new or “different” thinking and tools correlate with new or different aesthetic outcomes.
Sustainability brings with it all manner of new technologies, new social structures, new tools. Should Sustainable graphic design then carry with it additional new forms and aesthetics?
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby write in their 2001 book Design Noir: The Secret Life of Objects that “all design is ideological, the design process is informed by values based on a specific world view.” With “the welfare of all life” as our world view, how does that shift what and how we graphic design?
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby are proponents of “Critical Design,” design that “provides a critique of the prevailing situation through designs that embody alternative social, cultural, technical, or economic values.”
Sustainable graphic design is not just design that helps people and our planet, but design that is also critical of existing social, cultural, technical, AND economic structures; since many of these things are harming all life, not helping them to flourish.
Basic compendium of Sustainability and Sustainable Design related terms. Good reference book, not necessary to own

Author, Philosopher, Dane.
Our current systems, such as mass consumption yielding mass waste, are out of date and faulty. It is pointless to waste energy attempting to resolve designs within these systems. The creation and exploitation of new, better systems will be the main directive for sustainable design.
Related:
take a book, analyze the book, can you figure out how it is made by that analysis?
The foundation of the Linear Economy
Basically, we take things from the earth (extract resources), make stuff with those resources, and then the things/products become waste at the end sent "away" ...
This is in contrast to Circular Economy and Waste = Food
Artist, Designer, Sustainable Steward.
Met him virtually thanks to Sue Spaid
Enrolled in various courses and acquired certification for sustainable/green knowledge. To flaunt new found titles, created merit patches to be worn on gray coveralls during events and gardening sessions. <http://tattfoo.com/sos/SOSGreenStewardship.html> (Tattfoo Tan & S.O.S. Steward)
TiddlyBlink related
Writer, Thinker, Speaker, Creative
A great AIGA talk from 2018?
Design requires artistic skill, technical prowess, and conceptual thinking. Design is a communication mediator, a research tool, and a collaborator in the creation of culture. My desires are to encourage students to explore these facets of design, and to investigate future possibilities for the discipline. The first day of class in every course begins with the statement that design can be used for intellectual inquiry and self-expression, not just executing a client’s wishes.
Education is an active experience. Teachers and students are equal participants. I will help students find their formal and intellectual capabilities; but students must take responsibility for their personal growth. Given the constraints of an assignment, I ask students to respond as they see fit to provided prompts and exercises. Students are asked to use whatever interests they have in fleshing out their solutions. Students are provided with room to make up their own minds about what constitutes good, well-formed, successful design (provided they can explain their choices in sensical fashion). I help and guide how I am able.
My students will become self-reliant thinkers and doers. I want my students at the forefront of the discussion around design’s future. I want my students providing aesthetic solutions for what tomorrow’s design looks like. I want my students to have practical, applicable knowledge and speculative, fantastical projects under their belts. I want my students to succeed in my classroom and to continue succeeding when they have left academia’s walls and entered “the world.”
My attempts to achieve the above include:
The following are a series of aphorisms to further explain my design teaching thoughts.
Successful teaching culminates with students applying teachings from the classroom to their own lives, not just assigned projects. My goal is for students to leave my classroom (and their schooling as a whole) with a better understanding of the world around them and a consideration for how design and they themselves fit into that world.
Related Essays:
Related Notes: * Ten Principles for Good Design * Biomimicry
The current time and space we find ourselves in — technology, modernity, unfettered capitalism all crashing into each other to make society a trollish hellscape.
Computers and software are just tools. Contemporary technological tools are no different than an x-acto knife: no one tool is usable for everything; and, tools take practice and thoughtfulness to be used well. We have reached a quantity and Complexity of available tools where no single person can master all instruments. Designers should pick tools that offer the most future possibilities, not just the best short term outcomes. This is an important part of teaching in the “new media” sphere: not mastering all options, but sussing out what is important long term. A good teacher focuses on design concepts that are applicable to a wide range of tools and processes, not just to what the newest technological trend is. Learning technology (learning tools generally) should be seen as a way to illustrate and enhance design fundamentals, not just a merit badge to be earned.
T: Technology, E: Entertainment, D: Design.
A series of lectures, explainers, and general presentations trying to provide novel thinking and solutions to our big problems.
TED is a nonpartisan nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks. TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 110 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world.
Ten principles for good design
The Principles
Read them in more detail on Vitsœ’s site > https://www.vitsoe.com/us/about/good-design
Typesetting software system designed by Donald Knuth
In the late 1970s, Donald E. Knuth was revising the second volume of his multivolume magnum opus The Art of Computer Programming, got the galleys, looked at them, and said (approximately) "blecch"! … and ultimately realized that typesetting meant arranging 0's and 1's (ink and no ink) in the proper pattern, and said (approximately), "As a computer scientist, I really identify with patterns of 0's and 1's; I ought to be able to do something about this", so he set out to learn what were the traditional rules for typesetting math, what constituted good typography, and (because the fonts of symbols that he needed really didn't exist) as much as he could about type design. He figured this would take about 6 months. (Ultimately, it took nearly 10 years…)
no other current composition tool, proprietary or otherwise, can handle the material and produce high-quality, publication-worthy output, and simultaneously be usable by the writer of the document.
An attempt as using an Electric Information Age book style — Medium is the Massage stylings — to convey bits and pieces about the internet savaged present (circa 2015)
An amazing book.
I should write a summary of it myself.
Some questions that relate to this book:
- What are the words you do not have yet? [Or, “for what do you not have words, yet?”]
- What do you need to say? [List as many things as necessary]
- “What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?” [List as many as necessary today. Then write a new list tomorrow. And the day after.]
- If we have been “socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition”, ask yourself: “What’s the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?”† [So, answer this today. And every day.]
- Adapted from “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” collected in The Cancer Journals.
- † This question is borrowed from Naomi Wolf’s Commencement address at Scripp’s College, “A Woman’s Place.”
This resource was created by Divya Victor for students of her Creative Writing courses at Nanyang Technological University in January 2016. It has since been misappropriated by individuals and organizations, and it has also been responsibly used by a variety of non-profit and educational organizations. If you choose to use this resource in your classroom, please credit the author. Any use of this resource, in part or whole, by non-educational organizations requires written permission from the author.
victordi@msu.edu
reference by Additional Questionnaires to Oneself and https://aminatou.substack.com/p/homework-the-audre-lorde-questionnaire and https://nadiacolburn.com/the-transformation-of-silence-and-language-into-action/
Oh! and the best way to solve complex problems is with complex thinking — often that means many people in collaboration — there is no way you can know enough, be expert in enough things anymore … You need others to come by & say: why did you do x? didn't you think of y?
A place to collect the bits and pieces that when properly connected might illustrate my philosophy of design …
Related to Teaching Philosophy
how carbon dioxide goes from in the atmosphere, to in some plants, to in the soil, to in the stone, etc...
Reference:
A new resource on the fundamentals of carbon dioxide removal and its role in addressing the climate crisis
"This decade is a moment of choice unlike any we have ever lived," says Christiana Figueres, the architect of the historic 2015 Paris Agreement. The daughter of Costa Rica's beloved President José Figueres Ferrer, she shares how her father's unwillingness to lose the country he loved taught her how stubborn optimism can catalyze action and change. With an unshakeable determination to fight for the generations that will come after us, Figueres describes what stubborn optimism is (and isn't) – and urges everyone to envision and work for the future they want for humanity.
Christiana Figueres, a TED talk
Amazing set of essays on how distributed work around the Linux kernel worked... Describes a methodology not unlike the Vernacular processes in How Buildings Learn. Only, due to being code and distributed across the internet, works so much faster and fluidly.
According to David Bollier, the commons is:
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.
Carl Rogers
Elite Projection: The belief, among relatively fortunate and influential people, that what those people find convenient or attractive is good for the society as a whole. Once you learn to recognize this simple mistake, you see it everywhere. It is perhaps the single most comprehensive barrier to prosperous, just, and liberating cities.
In the vein of “Design as Author”
Outline/TOC for a zine/short book... The Designer as Sustainabilitist
Towards and understanding of sustainability as required by the design profession?
This essential guide to carbon debunks all the jargon around the element. It explains what it is, describes how it contributes to climate change and lays out ways of tackling the problem.
related to Dezeen Carbon Revolution
Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MA Typeface Design, University of Reading, 2008
By Dave Crossland. Outlines how libre fonts have grown out of free software and other movements. Outlines some issues and opportunities for free fonts moving forward.
A way to postulate (envision?) types of futures.

As explained in The Futures Cone, use and history
How to see more Future Possibles
Mr. Keedy’s article, ‘The Global Style’ as it appears in the winter 2013/2014 issue of Slanted magazine.
"I say this someone who argued back in the day, for design to be recognized as making culturally significant contributions and not just be seen as problem solving commercial tools. Today it is taken for granted that graphic designers have a cultural role to play. We won that battle, we have our autonomy. But is this how we want to use it? Replicating art world practices, and recycling old styles for each other? Is being an institutional servant somehow better than being a commercial one? Better for who?"
"The Global Style, Modernist Typography after Postmodernism" by Mr. Keedy Slanted Magazine, Winter edition 2013/2014
Source: http://readings.design/PDF/the-global-style.pdf
"Global Style, Revisited" by Mr. Keedy in 2015: http://inform.design.calarts.edu/2015/01/the-new-global-style-revisited/
V2:

V1:

The single most important thing for avoiding a climate disaster is cutting carbon pollution from the current 51 billion tons per year to zero, says philanthropist and technologist Bill Gates. Introducing the concept of the "green premium" – the higher price of zero-emission products like electric cars, artificial meat or sustainable aviation fuel – Gates identifies the breakthroughs and investments we need to reduce the cost of clean tech, decarbonize the economy and create a pathway to a clean and prosperous future for all.
TED conversation with Bill Gates and Bruno Giussani
Journal about Aesthetics and Protest?
Since 2000, the editorial collective has been hosting dialogs and framing dialogical relationships which embed the protocols of exchange in liberatory practice. Words find action in dialog. Dialog finds meaning in action.
Many events listed below involve other collectives and participants in addition to the Journal. But as Critical Discourse is central to our practice, we feel it important to include some of these projects on the website.
If this is the key, why don't we help more people figure out how to do this?
(or; why designer's don't f/los)
live on youtube 202007271900: <https://youtu.be/fLfeWtOpFto>
MICAGD Summer Camp; LIBRE GRAPHICS with Kristian Bjornard
20200724 Update: My plan to use the F/LOS video conferencing platform JitSi Meet is not quite working out, so we will be switcing to a zoom call!? And just a heads up incase it wasn't clear, this is less a "workshop" or "demo" and more of a lecture/walkthrough w/ Q&A and discussion.
A general outline for things I'll be trying to talk about and touch upon can be found on GitHub: <https://github.com/bjornmeansbear/lectureScripts/blob/master/theLibreDesigner.md>. And I'll also be trying to maintain an up to date document as things transpire during our time together Monday evening on EtherPad; this will be a way other than just zoom chat that links can be shared and questions can be co-authored or expanded upon in real time: <https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/thelibredesigner>.
Optional Homework: If you are totally new to the ideas of Free/Libre and Open Source, here is a great quick intro as to "what is open source" <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8fHgx9mE5U&list=TLPQMjMwNzIwMjDvdkWAxlxtzw&index=2> . You could look into the Free Software Foundation's definition of free software: <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>.
So, I look forward to seeing you all on Monday on Zoom [zoom link?]
Tired of giving over all your money, attention, and energy to our Neo-liberal capitalist oligarchs? While to get paid you still might have to design for them; you do not have to use the software and computers made by them! Come on a tour of wild world of Free/Libre and Open Source Software available for Graphic Designing. (Inkscape, ImageMagick, Nodebox, Blender, etc.). There will be time for Q&A.
Requirements: ~A Chromium (like Chrome) based browser; access to Jitsi.org;~ Now on Zoom, but still, you need the desire to liberate culture.
July 27, 7–9pm
For the 20200727 MICA GD Summer Camp version I'll be live streaming on youtube & there will be a live, dynamic document/chat up on etherpad: <https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/thelibredesigner>
Twitch: <https://www.twitch.tv/libredesigner>
The realm of Free/Libre Open Source (F/LOS) offers deisgners not only a pragmatic approach reviving how sociocultural artifacts have historically been created, but also a critical approach that, through utilizing ideologically based software and tools (and having far more easy of access to software and tools) intentionally positions itself as antidote to status-quo capitalism. A designer will find more ways to make; less obstructions to their creative vision; and the ability to learn from and to give back to a community.
I am writing this as a sort of lecture/essay – but I will first be giving this as a series of live streams on Twitch (I hope); then as a "virtual workshop;" then perhaps as a presentation at a small DrupalCon...
Anyway, the goal here is to point out simple to complex opportunities for a designer to start to integrate the practice and ideology of open source into their practice.
Welcome.
My name is Kristian Bjornard. I teach a variety of Graphic Design classes at the Maryland Institute College of art – mainly open studios for the seniors where they work on their capstone design projects, and then some web and motion and interactivity related courses for sophmores and juniors, and the occasional elective dealin
I first got into Free/Libre Open Source back in 2006. My first real, intentional entry into this world was using Drupal, a then novel content management system, to build websites. It seemed too good to be true – tons of people all over the world collaborating together to make a family of modules for doing all kinds of complex web things! Here was this amazing thing and it was free to download and free to use for whatever and however I chose? At the time I could never do too much more than occasionally participate in discussions around theming... but! Woah!
I ended up druapaling for a while... and then when I started getting much more into thinking about how design might be more sustainable, I was thikning about vernacular buildings[How buildings learn by Stewart Brand] and then how open source software like drupal evolved over time and adapted much like vernacular biuldings... and bam! I thought, oh, maybe something about f/los was more sustainable? I was also thinking that something like a typeface was important to make more accessible to more people for the purposes of sustainablity – ... and again, Libre type accomplished this...
The last sort of other path that helped lead me to "Libre designing" was being a publication designer and having a lot of projects with little to no art budget. So, let's say you're told you have basically $0 extra dollars for stock photos or hiring your own photographer, what are you going to do? Well, its another space I found – public domain and creative commons licensed images out among the piles of the internet... We'll get directly into this soon, but I just wanted to mention that my actual deisgn practice, mitigating the constraints of low budget projects, aslo accidentally led me to the ideas in the presentation...
So I've dabbled off and on with libre fonts, OS tools like Drupal, and then the occasional creative commons and public domain licesnsed imagery, etc.
This really got to be part of my practice when I ran a class about "Open Source Design" in 2018? (foot note class? footnote AIGA conference? footnote essay about the class?)
(anything else????)
Now, onto the libre designing.
For this array of ideas, I'm first going to introduce you to F/LOS if you haven't really had much of an introduction to it in the past. Then I'll try to outline from simple to complex how a designer "liberates" their practice. At the end, and throughout, I'll point out reasons that perhaps this isn't more mainstream incase you're not already thinking that...
Some Content Warnings:
Hopefully you know what you're here for!
The foundations to the Free/Libre Open Source arena has several interesting connections to the greater domain of Graphic Design. As such, I continue to be surprised how little our discipline seems to know about and partake in this world – outside of web design.
I will talk too long about the foundations for F/LOS if I get into it, so I'll skip over some backstory for now – but! the start of free/libre open source is partially related to graphic deisgning.
There is a great anecdote about Donald Knuth and being so offended by the bad typesetting of his computer programming books that he decides to invent a typesetting/layout program and magical font to draw all other fonts; this becomes TeX and Metafont, super great ideas that you can still use today ... And then the origins of freesoftware and GNU are that Richard Stallman is so upset that Xerox won't share the firmware code for a printer that isn't working right, he flies into an ideological, libertarian rage, quits his job, and vows never to make or use non-free software...
If you want to investigate this all more; I highly recommend finding out more about Donald Knuth – he is just an amazing person – and Tex and MetaFont – or even trying to use TeX (MacTex, LaTex, ConTeXt or some other fork)... If you like HTML and CSS you'll probably like "designing" documents in TeX. > check out Overleaf <https://www.overleaf.com/>. There are some cool old videos of him showing people how to use computers in the 80s...
You can also read all sorts of history and foundational information from, by, and about the Free Software foundation (<https://www.fsf.org/>) and GNU (<http://www.gnu.org/>)...
Oh, And then there is "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric Raymond, which does a good job outlining how Linus Torvalds created his world of distributed hackers to rapidly build and improve upon the Linux Kernel as it evolved... This is also a foundational text for how "Free/Libre" became "Open Source"... And can be useful for thinking about how or why "Open Source" is so pervasive in web design...
FYI: The history of intellectual property (at least in Europe/USA) is largely one of those in power trying to control things; not the less powerful trying being protected. (1556 establishment of the Stationers’ Company’s monopoly in England was largely intended to help limit the Protestant Reformation movement's power. By putting the entire printing industry in the control of this company, the government and church could prevent the dissemination of ideas. (from <https://lawshelf.com/coursewarecontentview/history-and-sources-of-intellectual-property-law/>))
Some examples to get things framed correctly right away?
- What sorts of common technolgy? what kinds of more general examples can I give them? - 1974 & 1979 AIGA/USDOT Pictograms/Symbol Signs (<https://www.aiga.org/symbol-signs/> & <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT_pictograms> & <https://thenounproject.com/aiga-icons/collection/symbol-signs/>) - The Idea of a RECIPE. - Any other tie ins with sustainability or anything else?
Okay, so we'll be talkinga about Free, Libre, Open Source – let's make sure we define F/LOS!.
What is Libre Graphics?
When I say "Libre Graphics" I am linking to the Free/Libre part of Free/Libre Open Source.
(this is where Stallman goes!?) Printer anecdote? His ideas of "freedom" > FSF/GNU
When "free" software st arted it was about the freedom to do with software as you pleased.
[stallman golden rule slide?]
FSF 4 freedoms.
Free as in Freedom, not as in price! (Libre not Gratis) You can still charge money for F/LOS; the point is to not stop someone from doing what they want with a thing (like when you buy physical objects). The point is not to give everyting away and go broke and die destitute in the gutter. I'll try to point out as we go why this is useful.
I say "libre design" instead of "free design" for the same reason – we don't want people to think that this design shouldn't cost anything; that it should be free to have done or to use; but that it should be about increasing people's freedoms, increasing liberty; not locking someone into a software or design ecosystem. Not prohibiting someone from doing what they need to do or want to do with a design tool; with a design.
Basically I mean that the recipe for any design should be shared for anyone to use; and the software, tools, or equipment should be as shareable and attainable too (like you might still have to buy equipment; but ideally its "open" as well so that you can hack and customize and control physical and digital equipment the way you need to while executing the recipe the way you want as well).
I'm interested in this for a few reasons:
The libre designer is a utopian device; a character as in any story; to show you another way, to be emblematic of other ideals. The libre designer stands for design tools and outputs that help return cultural production
There's so much to talk about :)
There are so many... we can dive into this more at the end if anyone cares; but in general there are truely free/libre licenses like GPL, CC share alikes, Apache; and then there are permissive license, MIT being the most used/known one. Basically, the libre licenses say that if you want to use this, great, but whatever you use it in also has to be open and shared in the same way. the permissive licenses say you can use this, and all you have to do is try to make it clear that you used this in your program or code somehwere; you _do not_ have to share your code the way I've shared mine... One is viral; one is isn't...
We'll start from the most clear and concrete things and end with the big, abstract, blurry ways to liberate your designing.
The easiest way to get started on this adventure is to change the photos, illustrations, icons, etc. that you might use in a project. This is easiest for several reasons:
Okay! so what does F/LOS mean to imageS?
So what we're looking for when we are looking for F/LOS imagery is imagery that is somehow licensed for anyone to do with it as they want. This often takes the form of "public domain" or "creative commons" or sometimes the "free art" or "libre art" license.
Add some things from Copy This book here? or at least reference it? or say if you want to learn a lot more about copyright and how these ideas fit togeter with contract law for traditioanl practice ou might like this book?
Good places to get started finding this stuff...
Once you have liberated your imagery and graphics, the next level is your fonts. Almost everything will work still with your existing hardware and software, but it is a magnitude harder to find, download and install some of the F/LOS fonts compared to just images...
There are some open source fonts already installed on the average computer; and adobe fonts brings in some of the google font library; so you can just turn a few on there to get started super easily
<https://fonts.adobe.com/foundries/google>
Google fonts is doing a lot of cool new stuff. They're hitting this variable font thing pretty hard, and part of that means that almost any newer typeface is being converted to a variable font. This also means that almost all the newer google fonts have the full 9 weights + italics, so getting a font from google fonts these days doesn't really mean its limited in glyphs, weights, quality, whatever
Eli Heuer?
I dig velvetyne, who are french, and then this italian foundry, (TK), and the League of Moveable Type...
A cool aspect of these fonts then is also you can not only get the fonts to use on your machine(s), share them with your clients and printers and friends and colleagues witout worry... you can also for the most part find and download the acutal source files used to to make th fonts. Does the F/LOS typeface you like not have a certain character or weight? well download the UFOs and edit it! Do you want to make a custom typeface for a client as part of their identity? find the thing closest to your vision from the F/LOS world and tweak it!
The universe of F/LOS fonts can sometimes feel limited... and can sometimes feel less-than in terms of quality. I would say that in general, while you might not end up with as many typographic nicities; real small caps, different styles of numbers, etc. this isn't always the case. Many of these F/LOS fonts are designed to serve populations, users, audiences, etc. historically not served. SIL for example, an organization who has done a lot for Libre Fonts (<https://software.sil.org/fonts/>) has many fonts with huge character sets so they could set their materials in as many languages as possible (they provide language tools to all manner of commnunites)...
Often over time F/LOS fonts evolve to have more features just like software, etc. Raleway for exmaple was launched w/ one thin weight by TLOMT (<https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/raleway>); but was forked and the incarnation that lives on google fonts has 9 weights, and italics, and even an extra display version, raleway dots. <https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Raleway?query=raleway#standard-styles> & <https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Raleway+Dots?query=raleway>
Font management is both easy and terrible with F/LOS offerings and on Linux in general. As far as applications for font management go, there's not a lot, and the one good-ish one upkept by a designery person is no longer maintained... So you're stuck manually putting things in the right places. The good part of that is that, well, using MacOS depending on what you're useing you can just use whatever font manager you're already using... Some of the F/LOS tools however, they just don't know to look for fonts anywhere except the main system folder... This is hard to add/delete fonts from if you're a regular computer user... but in Linux, there is pretty much only the sytem repo for fonts, so thus the bias/seemingly annoying "feature" (or "bug" depending on your view)
Programs!? How do you start switching your tools and programs and software!!??
Your images and your typefaces are now liberated. Not its time for all your software. This is the biggest leap; the largest jump; the hardest mental chasm to bridge so far. For somethings its a no brainer; for others its a nightmare. Let's try to navigate a small amount of this more complicated territory. Think of this as a partial; an incoplete map; of a terrain...
Now, today is a good day to try and find and use some of this stuff – there have never been so many easy to install and decent to use graphics tools. For the most part, most of this stuff now has mac/windows installers now – this was a big problem in the past; running a program in an emulator or virtual machine; having to download/install from the command line...
You could start with programs that only exist as F/LOS – things like Drawbot, OBS, Nodebox, Processing – there aren't adobe nor native mac programs that really do these generative design things, or are rad for video streaming/screen recording...
Once you start building up your library of F/LOS tools, to do cool things you wouldn't be able to do otherwise, you can graduate to starting to replace some of your proproietary software...
An incomplete list of all the libre graphics software you might want to try.
There are things like ImageMagick and GhostScript that are basically background applications – you can run them from the terminal and other programs actually rely on them to do key things. Imagemagick lets you manipulate images, pdfs, etc. from the command line... (here, let me turn this PDF into a folder of jpgs) Ghostscript is a terminal based PDF creating/editing tool!?
The key to all of this is to properly mentally frame this for yourself. Try to think of everything I show you or talk about today not as direct replacements for your regular processes or tools; but as reasonable alternatives – they might do things differently; but you'll be able to end up at the same final result: well designed graphic objects...
If you've gotten this far, you might start to think about file formats – how can i still share or fix things if I for some reason don't have access to what I need?? file formats are way more universal; standard in the F/LOS world.
For example, .SVG is a standard, open file format for web AND print. Illustrator can also read it. So can Sketch. So can Figma. SVG is really an XML document, so you can even read/edit SVGs with textedit or whatever coding IDE you like.
This is true across the F/LOS ecosystem. Usually, whatever file formats are used are open; or if not, then they try to be some sort of plaintext (XML or other sort of text doc) to try and make readability even without the right tool, possible... Scribus documents are also really just XMl files, look you can see more or less what's happening here in VSCode; and I can even edit the file here, save it, and when I reopen it in Scribus my document will have a new page. Here's what happens when you try to open an illustrator file in VSCode...
So you think you want to try GNU/Linux?
If you have been able to ditch Adobe; if you see all this and say, hell yes, liberate me from my technocratic overlords; then you can probably try ditching Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. You should give GNU/Linux a try.
And then besides figuring out what distro works for you there is the ecosystem of front ends too!
This starts to make way more sense even then designing software – the way your computer looks, works, etc. – shouldn't a designer weild some control over how a tool works? how their main "studio" is setup – how it acts, behaves, interfaces??? You can actually desing your interfaces; design your own icons; pick whatever typefaces you want to display wherever you want – It's way more of a design dream!
Most of the GNU/Linux OS world is meant to run on MANY kinds of computers; from tiny internet of things chipsets to big mainframes and everything in between. That means that its a lot easier to get a basic install of GNU/Linux running on whatever you have laying around than MacOS or Windows... You also have sizeable control over what GUI you use; os you can preserve resources for running software or rendering 4D graphics over giving all your finder windows dropshadows and animated effects.
An advantage of all this is that you might et more life out of an old machine; you might get more life out of an underpowered machine...
You should be able to fix your computer if it breaks; you should be able to customize your computers if you desire; increasingly this is getting impossible – it was already hard with Apples, but now most manufacturers are heading this route, especially for laptops. Using older or more liberated computer workstations means you have many more options for customization;
I mean if you want to be hardcore...
You can also look on FSF.org they link directly to fully liberated computer sellers.
So, you've changed image sources; you've changed fonts; you liberated your tools and your computer and OS... how to liberate your works?
As you start down this path you will find and see so many more opportunities... (like jitsi meet instead of zoom)
Now, your software, and maybe even your hardware, are liberated. You can use images, fonts, and programs that may be bent to your whims and will and flight of fancy. Great. How do you do something with them now that embraces all the same ideals as a process for producing work and future works?
How can you make your making liberated too?
How to apply F/LOS to designing?
- If we are open and share our designs, whatever, it is easier as a novice to learn how something is done; you can partake in freedom 1 – studying, etc. - Can we adapt to changes or different workflows more easily and quickly? - More collisions of ideas? - iterate design solutions instead of creating new ones all the time? - it's fun?
To help share more; to make it clear
If designers participate this way what does it look like? Garth Braithwaite: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djf8sLjtbzU>
1. Share your process just be more open about what you are doing (if you are able!?). Share what you are going through, success and failures – maybe it is more important to share your failures frankly. Mention who inspired you or that you built off of. Be more transparent about who your mentors, inspirations, etc. were. This builds community; shows the interconnected nature of work and ideas.
2. Share your Source Files If you can, share your files. I mean it is even better if you could always write a tutorial or documentation; but just sharing your files with libre licensing allows others to learn from how you've made things by just opening them up and poking around.
3. Whenever possible use text-editable Code (XML, HTML, JS, Python, plaintext, MD, Whatever) It is the easiest thing to work with on any system with any tools one desires. It is also easiest to version control. AND if you are designing for the web and you try to design with HTML/CSS you can easily preview it on the real systems that you're designing for.
4. Collaborate. Design is frequently not a "hey lets get together and make some stuff" discipline. Its often about being a singular design visionary; a design hero; and this is partially the fault of design history...
5. Donate!? If you make something things that don't end up being needed for a project, can you just donate them to the public domain? or with a CC license that allows sharing and remixing?
6. Contribute Can you design for the community in some way? how can you offer design skills back to other open projects? if you like a libre font, can you make sure to contribute design work you've made with it as examples for the type designers? build a webpage for an open project that needs a website? mockup alternative interface ideas for a tool? share tempaltes for Scribus? or Inkscape? Just submit issues, or go through issues related to design stuff and then try to answer other people's questions?
It is not just that designers CAN open source; but the benefits are so good; we're foolish not to be more open. And there are some designers trying out these methods... but as an industry we're still just really tied to.
In general; this stuff isn't easy. It's hard to just set out and do all of this – even the imagery and fonts stuff because there is expectation that designer's use certain type from certain places; you might be asked specifically to go to certian photographers or certain stock photo sites or be given aready unfree things to work with. Choosing to abandon adobe and apple... well, you probably can't do that if you have any sort of normal design job... ????
In general; the main thing keeping us from this is the desire of the status quo not to change. Neoliberalism works best when we all do what it wants. "free markets" not "free software".
The goal of this isn't actually full F/LOS adoption. I mean, my libre designer character I like to play, that's their goal; but in my own actual work, it isn't always possible to abandon everything every one else is using and doing. Clients will need you sometimes to make a book in InDesign; you might need to work in AfterEffects to work on your team... Instead of taking the extreme view, think of this really as a way to do more; to have more tools; to have more ways of doing things; to be able to make every more formal experiments; to better tie formal choices
How might this help you remove bias? what other kinds of interfaces might you now see and experience? What other kinds of interfaces and systems and opinions will you run into???
Designers are supposed to be designing fabulous interfaces. But! almost all of us use the same software on the same computers and so have an incredibly limited range of ideas for what makes an interface; for what makes a good interface; for what makes an accesible interfaces...
Think about this: the way desktop publising works on a computer, it was designed by a handful of people in the 80s, specifically to be done on a tiny mac at the time...you know like 8 key people decided a direction and a bunch of semiotic symbols for how to do things, for what features and icons and whatever else exist in these places... How much has changed since then? how much the same are these programs and ecosystems? Can steve jobs, Warnock, and (Page maker dude)'s ideas and decisions they made leading up to 1984 still be the right ones in the present we find ourselves in? Maybe some of these other tools grasp that ???
There are tools here that don't exist on a mac or windows machine; that's rad!
Other Resources:
The idea of using free/libre/open source approaches (or materials created and licensed in this manner) is novel, on one hand, and yet we already do it (and have hisotrically done it) more than we usually realize.
Contemporary design practice has a gap between the well understood practice of using open source web tools and various open file formats, and then the actual ways that we do design. Most design output doesn't easily fit in the OS software or CC/Free culture license spheres...; and doesn't always work in the forks/merge/repos model...
Designer as Author vs. Design as Instigator?
Design deals with projects that don't relaly lend themselves to shared responsiblity? either we make a thing and we're done with it, or its closely tied to a vision or specific period of time or need, maybe theyre just ephemeral, or maybe theyre just not that complex to begin with... They aren't really meant to be reusable tools, they are one off visual signs? but as design grows and increasingly is social and public, I think this needs to change...
Modularity and community: we need a community of people willing to work together. Designing community becomes more important than the nature of the tool itself?
Do we need a more modular design? how to pull apart pieces without the whole breaking apart?
How do you contribute to the design of a tangible printed piece?
It isn't about contributing to designs together, but it can be about allowing output to create and jumpstart other output. For a folder of design files to teach and inspire another.
There is another world of software and fonts — tools — one might use to make design output based on an alternative set of ideologies and needs than our “normal” design tools: The Adobe creative Suite (on a mac) for the most part (at least in my Graphic Design context).
I've been interested in F/LOS as a way to better integrate my sustainability beliefs into my design work. So, the course was a way for me to test some conceptual things as well.
new views on how the actual processes of designing could better match world views and beliefs. And how the software we use is just as important as clients, types of work, aesthetics, etc. if we see design as ideological or political act... Another was in showing how intentional collaboration, transparency, etc. might make designing more effecting… another that perhaps humanity had just been doing this all along and we chose to forget it and are struggling to figure out how to do it again… and another that perhaps — from a less abstract place — that just trying to make things with new tools is a good way to separate the "designing" from the "tool" …
To take this to a step closer to graphic design, there's two ideas I want to quickly analyze — for pragmatics, we can look at vernacular models, and wonder, well, what stallman is describing in terms of users having freedoms to use a thing however they want, share it, and modify it to their needs, that just sounds like how all things used to be made … I mean cape cod houses, shaker chairs, whatever. So, for me, I have been wondering why this got lost to visual designers, is it just capitalism? or is there something else we're missing? I don't have an answer for this yet.
And then, in terms of utopianism, if Stallman founded the free software foundation and the GNU operating system on such intentional, oppositional to main stream views, GNU is a "critical design" a la Dunne and Raby.
"Designers should develop parallel design activity that questions and challenges industrial agents."
Is this too good to be true? by just using GNU/Linux and installing the F/LOS design equivalents you're participating in a community challenging mainstream techno-modern-capitalism… Using F/LOS is just a critical design act!
This is a real connection between designing and sustainability and other socially conscious endeavors. My students liked it to. That a tool might reflect your ethics more authentically was valuable.
All Design is Ideological / Shouldn't our design tools be ideological too?
It also felt like a nice tie to 60s/70s counter-cultural design stuff like the whole earth catalog, Enzo Mari's Autoprogettazione, Papanek's Nomadic Furniture, Ken Isaacs living structures, Buckminster Fuller's dymaxion objects... etc. Those are projects and figures referenced by contemporary designers still, and those works were about trying to "open up" design using the freedoms stallman outlines, before stallman got to his free software! this was "free design" seemingly, and helped me at least validate that designers can do this (though, again, its easiest to find object and architecture designed things that have published plans, etc. where you build it yourself or 3D print it yourself, but not necessarily print graphics...)
Why have developers latched onto the open source movement, but designers have not? — Garth Braithwaite
Great, we've got this utopian position — all software should be free software, all designs should be free designs, it sounds great, but if this is all wonderful and great, why are there so few designers doing it?
The next time you go looking for F/LOS design and quickly find fonts, icons, templates, stock images and illustrations, and frameworks ask yourself: Is this all that F/LOS design means? Is that really all that’s possible? F/LOS offers up a pragmatic approach based on reviving how we as humans previously created socio-cultural artifacts; and a critical approach intentionally positioning itself in opposition to mainstream moderno-techno-capitalism. Those design “objects” that might help make more designs are the pragmatic side of things. The main outcome of our class it turns out is in trying to now populate the ideological side.
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” — Audrey Lorde
“… Capitalism must constantly ‘cool hunt’ and turn whatever is authentic and genuine into trends for consumption” — Micah White
“You probably heard that one before because it was never new and it never gets old and its a folk song...” — LLewyn Davis
What does design save by not diving more fully into free/libre/open source? What can we bring to design from F/LOS communities?
Type design is a place that seems to be doing pretty well open source wise… why type but not other graphic design places? Is it because we're accustomed to revival typefaces, but not revival layouts or logos? Is it because typefaces are more like tools and objects, and less purely formal, visual metaphors? What???
From a typographic stand point, libre fonts are superior pedagogically. Students can look at and legally experiment with the actual insides of a typeface. Useful for also learning some actual typographic design — can build onto, fork and build anew, or addsomething to an existing typeface w/out fear of retribution! Better experiential learnng enabled?
Open source is socialized means of production — which means you often have to help make your own shit. This isn't always what people want/can do? It is especially hard in regards to design: we are creators and problem solvers, but of often visual or physical things, not digital/code based things — especially not always of the actual tools of our design's productions (often working within a system — turn to printers for printing, typesetters/typographers for type, etc.)
We don't (I hope) all specify the same typefaces as right to use, we don't all use the same brand of pencil or notebook, we don't all read the same design books — so why do all use the same computers and computer software?
Obviously, on one hand, we have a pragmatic situation: these are the tools of industry, pretty much every design studios my students are going to get jobs working at will be running Adobe Creative Suite on macs. Why would I not want to help students learn to use these things in my classes? But then I run into an issue — I don't know that the computer software we use to do these things will be the computer software we always use to do these things... how closely is the "designing" I'm teaching linked to the "softwareing"? Can I teach a student all the same time and motion concepts without ever having them use After Effects?
Designing at its heart should be a set of skills, processes, patterns, ways of thinking, that are agnostic to discipline or tool. Obviously one needs some manner of experiential knowledge with a tool or medium or format in order successfully realize their vision, but in an abstract way. One of my favorite things about modernists like Massimo Vignelli is that thinking that their designing could be applied to anything — you need an identity? I can use my design knowledge to do that. You need a teacup? I can design that too. You need a suit? I can design a suit… a chair? wallpaper? table? business card? check check check check. That is agnostic to the tools of production. Have we tied the tools of production too closely to the designing?? what does open source change about that?
Why don't designers use open source? it's got bad UI? it's hard to find, install and actually use? The moderno-capitalist machine tells you that only Adobe CC can produce "professional" work? (or maybe something from AutoDesk)
Something interesting about us designers is that we all are using the same operating systems and softwares. In a field that values creativity and inventiveness, how can we be good at designing UI's, etc. when we all are looking at and fiddling with the same set of things as each other? One thing about a good interface is that goodness is often about familiarity. There is a certain amount of intuitiveness that you want to achieve, but in the end I like my Mac because I've been using macs for 30 years (a Mac SE from 1988 was my family's first comp I really remember using a lot). My colleagues that exclusively have used Windows or the few that are die hard linux afficianados feel the same for their chosen ecosystems — these things work as expected, those others don't, thus this is good and those are bad. I ran into this with my students too. I requested that they all try to use open source alternatives to Adobe products for the term. Most of them indulged me by at least installing inkscape, gimp, scribus, blender, etc. on their machines, but in the end claimed they were too hard to get to make the "finished" work they were trying to make... it was bad software and they couldn't make it work. I would argue that goodness and badness isn't really the issue — its learned behavior that's the issue. It's like knowing how to play a piano, and then being handed a guitar having never played one before — you can figure out the notes and maybe generally make something musical, but you wouldn't be able to say, play all the pieces of music you'd already learned for the piano with any skill... Anyway, the point is — by forcing yourself to try alternative tools you are actually making yourself a better designer. you see more things, you experience more, you might find that there are multiple ways of drawing vector paths (for example, Inkscape has 5 different kinds of vector path options when you select the pen tool compared to illustrator's one (Illustrator only draws good old beziers))
What's important about Free/Libre/Open source? to me its the ethics and the ideology. Even if you don't want to use the software or the fonts themselves (though you should, there are some magnificently robust F/LOS fonts [Fira, Noto, Gentium, …; and really, Inkscape is superior for pure vector drawing]) you can benefit from seeing designing from the point of view of an open source developer. Mainly, that while you might be the creative visionary, you owe it to the community that exists around your project to involve them in improving your work.
Adopting the idea that your creativity should result in outputs that others can benefit from and build upon is at odds with our contemporary capitalist culture.
GNU's origins are in ethical utopia. Users are the same as neighbors, fellow citizens. We must apply our do unto others beliefs to the access and reuse of and extension of the tools we make, not just our person to person interactions.
Pragmatic utopia: Imagine the world the way you wish it was, and then you actually sit down and try to build it that way.
Can I design the design that belongs to the time/space/world that I want to live in? if it doesn't exist already around you then you have to make the objects to help grow the future you want around those designs.
Open source software powers much of the web and the modern tech world. Open source hardware powers all manner of maker spaces, workshops and offices. How do we use these mechanisms to the benefit of Graphic Design? This article's goal is to present the root ideals of the free/libre/open source software movements, and then apply them to the making of graphic design. Part of the paper covers the use of open source design tools, analyzing their pros and cons when compared to typical “industry-standard” making methods.
Questions being answered: What does “Open Source” mean in a Graphic Design context? How do visual designers help to iterate & improve these tools without the ability to code? How do non-mainstream tools change how we make graphic design? How do our design processes evolve & maintain transparency the same way open source communities & projects do? What do accessibility, transparency, and “freedom” bring aesthetically to visual design solutions?
Nodebox is an interesting example of a toll that perhaps has one of the more intuitive interfaces I've used period. The normal rub against open source tools is taht the UI design is a nightmare. This is sort of a double strike against them from the point of view of a designer?
I've had a lot of experience with open source communities on the web — I was a Drupal user fairly early on, have tried all sorts of CSS frameworks, and contemporary javascript plugins — but had never really tried to use linux to run anything other than a server, nor gave any of the desktop tools a real go. Personally and pedagogically I was interested in giving some things a go.
Are we limited by our tools? Are we teaching students to use Adobe Creative Suite, or are we teaching them to be designers? How might alternative tools work better pedagogically in this goal?
Open source as utopia?
What's humourous about all of this is that Design was historically open source... Life/Humanity has always evolved and grown based on slowly and building on whatever came before without worry of credit or cost or whatever else... That we need something like open source now is slightly amusing — Wanting to carefully protect our intellectual or creative "properties" is a fairly new ideal. Perhaps its connected to the fairly modern idea of artist/designer as unique, special, individual creator/solver of problems?? Capitalism of course needs to be able to make money off these things... so that is part of the rub too. But, "Open Source" still works in capitalism (see RedHat, or Acquia as examples — selling support and other services, etc. built on top of an otherwise free tool (Redhat mainly sells support for its linux distributions, Acquia sells support and specialized hosting for large Drupal websites)).
Open Design is not about community sourced design decisions, there can still be a single originator of the design, someone with singular vision, etc. but it does imply that there is transparency. (look at Garth's thoughts for reference on this?)
To work on open source design means to publish creative work with an open license, giving the community a chance to reuse and rework your content in ways you may not have considered. It is also the act of contributing design work to existing open source projects. Both executions of open source design imply that the work is open to contributions and collaboration from outside designers.
Although open sourcing is great, not every design can be published under an open license. However, almost every project can be designed openly
As an added benefit to designing in the open, it is a short leap to open source design.
encourage all designers to become familiar with open source and make contributions to projects they care about.
This is not merely a nice idea, it is a clarion call to shed our insecurities, pride, and paralyzing perfectionism; to dedicate effort to helping worthy causes; and to raise the quality of design and design education on the web. A call to design open. — How do we improve this? How do we carry on the discussion?
Applying F/LOSS principles to art and design might help us improve visual literacy, just as F/LOSS improves computer literacy. Applying F/LOSS principles to art and design might help us better understand the knowledge present in the creative process.
F/LOSS encourages a mindset of bringing together disparate sources to make something new. This is why artists could potentially feel at home. There’s never a clean slate when you make a work of art or design. We are informed by our personal history, we are informed by all the other works we know.
does just showing content/process/files/etc. count as open design?
OSD is rooted in vernacular techniques. Sharing, iterating, copying whatever works best was what allowed communities to develop effective tools, clothing, shelter, objects, etc. A similar set of practices, more or less everywhere, allowed for forms to slowly iterate, progress, improve, disperse, but still to generate local flavor and specialization. Aesthetics, materials, decoration, forms are able to grow and evolve based on specific locations, but the general idea of iterative, open, designs was the way pretty much all cultures "designed" in the past. Successful techniques were discovered to address local environmental conditions in an economic, reliable, easily duplicable manner.
Interest in this vernacular approach began to surface within communities of computer scientists (this was also how scientific knowledge often is shared and grows) … this became (and is called variously) F/LOS: Free, Libre, Open Source...............
designers can choose to use open source tools like Scribus or Fontforge. Free to modify their tools, open source designers have the power to change the aesthetic mode of production. This is particularly important because, as Fredric Jameson writes in _Postmodernisn, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism_, because, “[a]esthetic production has become integrated into commodity production.” By using open source tools, designers can reclaim autonomy and authorship. [potential connection with Dunne/Raby, Mari, and the modernsim is bad conversation our class had]
Still, the boundaries that define open source design are difficult to articulate. For some designers, the OSD approach may entail the use of open source programs such as Sketch or Scribus. For others, it may mean designing a custom GitHub page for a worthy piece of open source software. Still for others it may mean sharing resources, process, and knowledge. However, most examples of open source design, such as Mozilla’s Photon Design, remain directly connected to the world of open source software. While the infrastructure of open source software has been intentionally developed,open source design is a practice still in its infancy, and lacks an effective platform to leverage the power of the community.
Participation in the open source community can cause radical shifts in design thinking, forcing dialogue into practice and problematizing tools often taken for granted. In the end, this may be the most significant advantage of open source design. As Enzo Mari writes in Autoprogettazione, building your own tools is the "best way to avoid being designed yourself." If everyone is given the opportunity to shape these tools, perhaps it is possible to design in a way which is responsive to the needs of the many, filling vital roles through user engagement. This not only guarantees greater inclusivity and accessibility, but represents a fundamental shift away from the capitalist mindset.
Am i really this much of a communist? In my thinking about sustainability, I've been moving towards the idea that my tools are incorrect. Adobe's creative suite is a creation of a modernist/capitalist system that is creating the sustainability issues. If this is the case, only another set of tools should be supported. Is that where the OS stuff comes in? That's where it started for me — fonts — open fonts seemed more sustainable and egalitarian. From there I've moved towards more intrinsically open tools. I've been trying to make the way I work more transparent as well.
A key issue in understanding — online in documents I found, with people I talked too, and in my students in the classroom — what that open design meant co-designing. I think this is not true. A design, to be good, needs strong initial vision and planning and theorizing. So, it would probably still start with an individual need or vision and spark of creative brilliance, but be amplifyied through the ideals expoused by Stallman, Raymond, et. al.: Openess, transparency, etc.
The success of the open-source community sharpens this question considerably, by providing hard evidence that it is often cheaper and more effective to recruit self-selected volunteers from the Internet than it is to manage buildings full of people who would rather be doing something else. Okay, so is this then also a way to run a design studio???
These aren't the standards. You can't conflate learning to use scribus with learning to work in a design studio.
Rudnick – designing is increasingly focused on solving problems of a client, not problems of an audience. Does leraning to use the right tools to get employed relate to this? focus on technical skills as they apply to a workspace as opposed to the more general ideas of designing period?
F/LOS tools are a struggle. Especially if you're already conditioned to how other tools work. Again, in presenting alternatives they point out the failings and successes of existing, more commonly used tools. Inkscape has more options when drawing with the pen tool for example – that can lead to some really radical outcomes that you can't just accidentally arrive at w/ something like Adobe Illustrator.
If the goal of us as academics is in increasing knowledge (I would also say that any field period is only useful if it is constantly producing knowledge and moving culture), then we are arbitrarily limiting the futures of visual design by collectively standardizing on a set of softwares/operating systems/formats.
What are we teaching in our graphic design classes? Are we teaching students to use the Adobe Creative Suite – or are we teaching them designing?
How does the new toolbox solve whatever things I mention before???
Adobe more or less has a monoply on the toolset of the visual designer. Worldwide most designers, studios, and educational programs rely on Adobe tools to output their visuals (more physical good related things might be reliant on all autodesk suites of things instead, but the point more or less stands).
Is there a pedagogical or ethical problem with that? Is it made worse by the fact that we can't get at any of the components under the hood? and I don't mean make or modify the software, I just mean even the basics of having file formats that aren't easily interchangeable or editable w/out their tools. Most of the libre design tools use some sort of open format, or at least text-editable format if you are mising the program. Scribus and Nodebox for example, their file formats are really both just special xml documents. Opening in a text editor means you can still pretty easily "read" the design even if you can't see it. This means that you can edit, improve, and reflow your file w/out even needing to have Scribus installed! If you can figure out the xml, you can make actual meaningful edits to your layout w/out the gui! Try that in Indesign.
Design should be a conduit to communicate your values … do the tools that you choose to use affect this?
Teaching is more difficult than learning because what teaching calls for is this: to let learn. The real teacher, in fact, lets nothing else be learned than learning. His conduct, therefore, often produces the impression that we learn nothing from him, if by 'learning' we now suddenly understand merely the procurement of useful information. – Martin Heidegger
Open source software powers much of the web and the modern tech world. Open source hardware powers all manner of maker spaces, workshops and offices. How do we use these mechanisms to the benefit of Graphic Design? This article's goal is to present the root ideals of the free/libre/open source software movements, and then apply them to the making of graphic design. Part of the paper covers the use of open source design tools, analyzing their pros and cons when compared to typical “industry-standard” making methods. This paper also presents how the research, discussions, interviews, experiments, and work/output of the course “Open Source Design” (running Jan-May 2018) changes the ways a designer envisions their practice and methods of making. The paper utilizes the author's own work and research, work and research from the FLOSS community, as well as content created by their students to support the arguments. The way one works with FLOSS tools and ideals creates different systems, processes, methodologies, and aesthetics. The works of the author and their students provide interesting visual and code-based examples to help answer and illustrate this. Questions being answered: What does “Open Source” mean in a Graphic Design context? How do visual designers help to iterate & improve these tools without the ability to code? How do non-mainstream tools change how we make graphic design? How do our design processes evolve & maintain transparency the same way open source communities & projects do? What do accessibility, transparency, and “freedom” bring aesthetically to visual design solutions?
The Lost Tetrads of Marshall McLuhan, by Marshall McLuhan and Eric McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan was the visionary theorist best known for coining the phrase "the medium is the message." Shortly before his death, together with his media scholar son Eric, McLuhan worked on a new literary/visual code — almost a cross between hieroglyphics and poetry — that he called "the tetrads." This was the ultimate theoretical framework for analyzing any new medium, a koan-like poetics that transcended traditional means of discourse. Now Eric McLuhan has recovered all the "lost" tetrads that he and his father developed, and accompanies them here with accessible explanations of how they function.
The Maintainers, a global research network interested in the concepts of maintenance, infrastructure, repair, and the myriad forms of labor and expertise that sustain our human-built world. Our members come from a variety of backgrounds, including engineers and business leaders, academic historians and social scientists, government and non-profit agencies, artists, activists, coders, and more.
The Market is dependent on cheap discounted access to The Commons (digital and physical)
“The market economy story has spread like wildfire, with uneven results for human well-being and devastation for the natural world. But it is just a story we have told ourselves and we are free to tell another, to reclaim the old one.”
― Braiding Sweetgrass
How does the idea of the metaverse work within a framework of sustainability? within the framework of the welfare of all life?
Matthew Ball, who has written extensively about the concept, including a ten-part Metaverse Primer earlier this summer, defined the Metaverse in 2020 as having these seven qualities:
The most thrilling times in design history are the ones of the greatest change, when designers interpreted shifts in science, technology, behavior, and politics for the rest of us
The most used image on earth IS an image of earth.
NASA, as a US government institution, in producing images, automatically has them in the public domain? there needs to be better wording for this.
Anyway, this blue marble image, it is in the pbulic domain because it was created by NASA > section 101 and 105 of the us Copyright act > copyright protection does not apply to any work created by the US Government...
so, what is this image?
Examples of the NASA blue marble in all sorts of funny places?
The troubling part of the Public Domain when used like this is that these creations that use the Blue Marble ARE not free, neither in price, nor in copyright. You can use a public domain image to CREATE a copyrighted, protected, non-free culture image.
This is where the ideology of Richard Stallman and The Four Freedoms come in.
by David Pye
A basic theory of design where none existed before. A healthy correction to critiques of the past century. Design is everywhere.
NOTES:
It is not of the slightest use for us to ask 'what is good design?' until we can answer the question 'what is design?' (pg 11, ¶4, L4)
The main difference between art and design is that the designer has limits set upon their freedom of choice (pg 11, ¶5) – FUNCTION carries with it LIMITATIONS or CONSTRAINTS
Function is a fantasy (pg 12, ¶1, L4); and thus so is FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION
What function does this form serve???
Bottom of PG12:
Whenever humans design and make a useful thing they invariably expend a good deal of unnecessary and easily avoidable work on it which contributes nothing to its usefulness. (pg13, ¶2, L2) &! All useful devices have got to do a lot of other useless things which no one wants them to do (who wants a car to get hot, tires to wear out, etc.) (pg13, ¶3, L2)
unconscious motive for doing so much useless work is that if cannot make things work properly we can at least make them look presentable (pg13, ¶4, L5)
The coronavirus brought much of the world to a standstill, dropping carbon emissions by five percent. Al Gore says keeping those rates down is now up to us. In this illuminating interview, he discusses how the steadily declining cost of wind and solar energy will transform manufacturing, transportation and agriculture, offer a cheaper alternative to fossil fuels and nuclear energy and create millions of new jobs. Stay tuned for a lively debate about geoengineering and hear Gore's thoughts about how humanity can create a clean, prosperous future through a focused global effort and a generation of young people committed to change. (This virtual conversation, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson, was recorded June 23, 2020.)
Random assortment of mostly free to use icons. I think it used to be better... This is a Resource, a Design Resource. It shares some philosophical ideas with F/LOS
I will:

Done while at SundaysEnergy — we made climate change related posters, etc. as products to try and sell.
(all from found notes on PG35 of 50 Years BauHaus)
The principal goal of GNU is to be free software. Even if GNU had no technical advantage over Unix, it would have a social advantage, allowing users to cooperate, and an ethical advantage, respecting the user's freedom.
The real teacher lets nothing else be learned other than learning.
Van Niestat aka The Spirited Man likes to say this — the routine is the job — meaning that you have to setup a routine to help success be generated, to make sure that success in your endeavors is what comes out of the process. Same time, same channel...
In a 2010 study, TerraChoice investigated the claims of 4,744 “green" products carried in stores across the U.S. and Canada, finding that more than 95 percent of these products were guilty of at least one of what they call:
The Seven Sins of Greenwashing
1. Hidden Trade-Off: Labeling a product as environmentally friendly based on a small set of attributes (i.e., made of recycled content) when other attributes not addressed (i.e., energy use of manufacturing, gas emissions, etc.) might make a bigger impact on the eco-friendliness of a product as a whole.
2. No Proof: Making an environmental claim without providing easily accessible evidence on either the label or the product website (i.e., a light bulb is touted as energy efficient with no supporting data).
3. Vagueness: Using terms that are too broad or poorly defined to be properly understood (i.e., an “all-natural" cleaner may still contain harmful ingredients that are naturally occurring).
4. Irrelevance: Stating something that is technically true but not a distinguishing factor when looking for eco-friendly products (i.e., advertised as “CFC-Free"—but since CFCs are banned by law this is unremarkable).
5. Lesser of Two Evils: Claiming to be greener than other products in its category when the category as a whole may be environmentally unfriendly (i.e., an organic cigarette may be greener, but, you know, it's still a cigarette).
6. Fibbing: Advertising something that just isn't true (i.e., claims to be Energy Star Certified, but isn't).
7. Worshiping False Labels: Implying that a product has a third-party endorsement or certification that doesn't actually exist, often through the use of fake certification labels.
As the TerraChoice study highlights, greenwashing is rampant, which makes it difficult to know who to trust. To play it safe, make sure that your go-to sources for information and shopping are investigating the claims of each product they sell in their stores.
The Sustainabilitist arose from a prompt I asked myself: “What does sustainable Graphic Design look like?” From that initial question, many investigations and subsequent questions, paths, failures, and successes were had.
Definitions:
Questions:
Related:
Environmentalism’s goal was environmental sustainability.
Post-environmentalism’s goal must be true sustainability.
I propose a new term for the followers of Post-environmentalism: Sustainabilitists.
We sustainabilitists shall take over where the environmentalists leave off, moving sustainability from the realm of the environment into all realms.
The following Principles will help move our ideas and actions into the region of the truly sustainable.
We sustainabilitists must allow our designs, strategies and methodologies to evolve and adapt to new ideas.
In keeping within its own principles, this Manifesto and its concepts will be in a constant state of Flux.
Keep an open mind and do not blindly follow the principles. Don't worry about “sameness” or “correctness.” Solutions will be different in each scenario and situation. This is not worse or wrong.
Originally written in 2009. Based on some work I was doing for my MFA thesis. An extension of the piece "The Sustainabilitist Principles"

The Sustainabilitist Principles is a modular manifesto; a collection of the ways of thinking to sustainably design as I considered them in 2009. The goal: create an object whose form embodied the principles it conveyed.
The Sustainabilitist Principles started out as the books on my desk. Where did "sustainable designing" lay within them… I mapped connections between ideas… wrote down repeating ideas… pondered interconnections over time and space of similar principles… how could I clarify access to these ideas for the next designer?
The final output of this direction brought necessary pieces together in an intentional, ephemeral form for an exhibition. We don't need another book or poster series to explain these principles: the objects themselves could do it if put together correctly!
The books were my actual books. The screen printed definitions were printed on the front matter of found paperback novels. The interconnecting embroidery floss was used in the longest possible pieces to maximize reuse of the thread afterward.
This was my first truly successful piece of "sustainable graphic design." It was also my last "answer" to a question in grad school: "What does sustainable Graphic Design look like?"
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Related:
see The Sustainabilitist Principles
The was work and thinking I did BEFORE TSP and then there is work and thinking I have done AFTER TSP... it is sort of a transition project between old and new. ???
The main thing was that it provided an example of Sustainable Graphic Design Does Not Exist
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important. ”
This is a book... but it is also an explanation on Edwin's website: http://www.biothinking.com/btintro.htm
https://electricliterature.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/silenceintoaction.pdf
Inspiration for The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself
The consideration of Economic Sustainability, Social Sustainability, AND Environmental Sustainability in one's business dealings
part of the new TED countdown: https://countdown.ted.com
On his first day as president, Joe Biden signed a letter of acceptance that set in motion the 30-day process for the United States to re-join the Paris Agreement on climate. On the day the US returns to the accord, John Kerry, the US Special Envoy for Climate, sits down with Nobel Laureate Al Gore to discuss the make-or-break decade ahead of us. Listen as Kerry lays out how the US fits into the global plan to get to net-zero emissions, explains why the COP26 UN climate conference could be humanity's "last best hope" to build international momentum and explores the role of business and youth activists in promoting environmental justice. (This interview features an introduction from Christiana Figueres, the principal architect of the Paris Agreement.)
with Al Gore, John Kerry, and Christiana Figueres
the visual conventions of modernism were not timeless truths, but instead, the results of a visual response to social, economic, and technological change, and that we were facing a similar situation
The ultimate goal: design for the welfare of all life.
When I say "true sustainability" this is what I mean – that all humans and other life should flourish – aka, we need to be concerned for the welfare of ALL life, not just human life.
You are painfully aware that the western European project of legal ownership of property and nature has failed, and we are living in the outcome of this massive failure is going to destabilize the future for a long time... we are all deeply troubled by it
we are living in the space of how to do something significant about it... that is a really hard space to be in.
how to have hope?
Amazing collection of all sorts of things.
Founded by Stewart Brand. Has included work and writing and diagrams and plans and references to all sorts of Hippie Modernist greats. Victor Papanek, R. Buckminster Fuller, and more.
Stewart Brand's project originally. Collected all kinds of useful stuff into a single tome. Kind of the internet in book form of the laste 60s-80s.
Now all is online.
Make my house fully electric — get off of Natural Gas. Get to Net Zero somehow.
Part of any therapy, whether it be individual, couple, or family, is building self-awareness. With this comes the uncomfortableness of dealing with emotions you’d just rather not feel. Things like sadness, anger, guilt, and hurt. Things that make you feel vulnerable. I can say this from my own experience with therapy: Lean into the discomfort. Because when you come out the other side you’ve learned more about yourself, more about how you affect others, more about what works for you and what doesn’t, and more about the joy you can have. Be gentle with yourself, though. Handle what you can at the times you can. Take it slowly.
I have been going through a lot of old work, old writing, old lectures, just all of my past “work.”
What kind of useful revisionist history can I tell about all these pieces that a) make a useful connection between all of my work, and b) create some new understanding...
Is one of the connections my own understanding, my interest in seeing how things are connected, seeing where I can better learn? Is the connection an exploration of various technologies? is the connection an ever growing desire to access more tools?
I have spent a lot of time lately looking through old works, reading through old essays and lectures... just trying to analyze what I've done; go back to existing presentations and lectures...
I've been struck by a couple of things.
Okay, so I am gonna go through a couple of my favorite works from the last twenty years. I'll try to point out quickly what was good about them, how they came to be, why they are the way they are...
This will be part revisionist history, part utopian speculation.
Does any of this matter?
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What does design do? and what does it mean?
Sustainability as flourishing. What does this mean for designing? we strive for a context in which all life can flourish.
Design and the welfare of all life. How does this change how design is practiced and defined?
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Earthstronauts:
The ultimate aim of design must be restoring harmony in the carbon cycle. No longer can we produce meaningless prints, tchotchkes, devices, apps, objects, and software. No design shall be created without first asking “does this need to exist?” — “does this drawn down carbon from the atmosphere?” — “does this re-balance natural systems?”
We need the conscious, cooperative effort of all designers, politicians, craftspeople, scientists, farmers, parents, small business owners, etc. A new design education must aid in this federated endeavore. How might a new pedagogical approaches focus on the liminal; designers as connectors? For everything is connected.
Designers must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of “climate” as a holistic entity AND in its separate, interconnected parts (climate(s): natural, social, technical, etc.? _the_ planetary climate? the earth? nature? the universe?). Only then will our designing be imbued with the spirit it has lost as mere servant of capitalism.
Old styles and models for designing are not capable of producing the required unity. Abandon them. New styles, new processses, new ways of working, new ways of making, and new ways of seeing are required.
We must merge design with the workshop, the science lab, the forest, the internet, the ocean depths, the lecture hall, the meadow, the studio, and the public square. Designers shall become the nexus between new interests and needs. Our client is our climate. Our goals: drawing down carbon, the welfare of all life, and the restoration of spaceship earth.
“BauErden” is meant to replicate the concepts from the original Bauhaus manifesto, but with a climate-centered lens, instead of architecture building and craft as a focus...
bauhaus course diagram?
ulm school course diagram?
hypotehtical BauErdern course diagram?
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Should this whole thing be signs signalling sustainability > the libre actions are one aspect of this? reuse is one aspect of this? This is the unifying feature; all these things can be shown to do something from my "Sustainabilitst Principles" project from grad school???
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What does sustainable graphic design look like?
How does one move towards a more sustainable graphic design practice?
- Part of my solutions are transitioning clients, materials, etc. towards “better” options; - what "better" means is relative of course, but in general lower energy, less materials, safer materials, etc. - my GNU/Linux (F/LOS genereally) experiments are another; - Reusing old design ideas another. (Design-a-Days; Kit-of-Parts)
Now, one might ask if spending hundreds of hours trying to relearn a workflow and tooling in GNU/Linux is sustainable (the general open sourcery is SOOOO much work to transition too)? But! I am more than capable of reusing much older computers in this realm, so there is a possiblitiy for not having to get NEW computers anymore?
The GNU ecosystem is fully into reusing old ideas — just reusing ideas period.
The ecosystem for libre tools is more like a natural ecosystem: evolution; variations due to minor differences of philosophy or habit or desire; a plurality of solutions… If the way our tools are built and evolve is more like natural cycles/processes; does that allow those tools to fit into our lives, society, and culture in more "natural" ways? (natural meaning finding harmony with nature; being more "a part" of nature rather than "apart" from nature).
Do the ideals of F/LOSS align with the ideals of sustainability?
Does "all humans and other life should flourish" fit into F/LOSS as an ideal?
- go into flourishing? - bruce mau's design for the welfare of all life - get some blurbs from my Towards Sust Aesthetics essay?
Where and how do my interests in Design serving a flourishing/wellfare of all life agenda and my interests in F/LOSS overlap; how are they additive; how do they serve each other. Are they negative or at odds with each other?
- Our current capitalist constructs DO NOT improve the wellfare of all life; - the origins of F/LOSS are anti-capitalist — or at least anti valuing making a buck over the good of your neighbor — so, if you have to use software, F/LOSS is more likely to AID you in helping all life flourish than proprietary/non-free softwares. (Is this provable? or measurable?)
Free software can allow for more creative waste to become creative food. And, WASTE = FOOD is a sustainable ideal. So, does that make free software more sustainable?
Waste = Food; what other ways can I find that this is true for creative kinds of waste? As I mentioned before I think that in some ways F/LOSS improves upon this equation.
Is this also how vernacular patterns/building come into the picture — are free/libre open models the new vernacular (is that how I make my designing today more like the way say a Cape Cod house comes together?)
Waste = Food is a great idea to apply to more things than just the natural world. Here's a great prompt: the earth's major nutrients are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, & nitrogen ... what are graphic design's major nutrients? (and! how can they be cycled and recycled into new graphic design indefinitely?)
Dunne and Raby propose that design should explore activities and outcomes that question and challenge status quo industrial agendas—however! for the most part the designers doing this are still using status quo tools! Sustainability (at least the flourishing variety I am interested in) is NOT the current status quo; so if I am challenging the assumptions of contemporary design and capitalist consumerism, then I need non-capitalist consumerist tools to do that with—enter F/LOSS.
Sustainable Graphic Design is a mindset, not a checklist of "the right" materials
- If you have the right mindset, but still use the wrong materials, does it matter? - If one uses better materials, but for the status quo aims, does it matter? - In what ways can I change how I work and live to yield immediate results?
Sustainable graphic design does not exist. that might mean "there is no such graphic design that can count as sustainable — its all wasteful garbage that does nothing good" — or — sustainable graphic design doesn't exist meaning that it comes together to serve a communication purpose; deliver a semiotic message; and then redistributes back to whatever energy and matter it was before.
The point is not that literally you can't make it (though that is sort of what I was thinking at first), but that a graphic designed thing that is sustainable comes together to communicate the message it needs to communicate; and then can dematerialize back to its initial parts once the communicative need is over. How does "signs on a substrate" translate to "pieces coming together for a determinate amount of time and then returning to their constituent pieces"
Sustainability is about knowing what you want to sustain. Libre tools are about a person's freedom to do what they want. If I don't want to sustain our moderno-techno-capitalism, then I should probably use libre tools while creating alternatives... what do I want to sustain though? It is easy to say what I don't want to sustain; less clear to say what I do want to.
If sustainable designers don't make design; what do we make? who do I need my next clients to be? If I am all in on the sustaino-libre stuff; what are the kinds of things I must investigate? And, how does being a "graphic designer" play into all this when/if/as my projects become more about software development; more about building bicycles; more about actions or interventions; more about proposals and plans?
I know I like to say how the sustainabilitist principles project exemplifies "sustainable design does not exist" since the objects came together to be a sculpture for an exhibition and then went back to being the objects afterward — but how does that work for other kinds of projects? can I work with clients and still pitch that kind of solution? (do I have examples????)
Should sustainable design look intentionally different to tell everyone that its not the same? If the paradigm must shift; then the styles should probably shift as well to be clear that they are in all ways different? By just using different tools and typefaces and image sources do you do this? does it need to be more extreme than that?
What is perennial graphic design that is restorative to culture — that protects and builds cultural health? (the same way that prairie grasses build and protect the soil health of the plains?)
What does "graphic designing" do to heal and restore the world? how can making anew unmake all the old?
What are local and reusable materials for visual design? making my own paper? creating sheets of remade plastic "paper"? digging and making my own clay to make tablets out of? firing pages that way? what do I produce with those things? plates to print from? stamps? seals? do I draw and compose right into clay? what else allows me to put "signs on substrates" in a meaningful way that continues to let me "graphic design" but really does something about material usage; education; communication; etc???
Am I a sustainable designer? or am I a sustainable person that happens to design — everything I design is thus influenced by my sustainabilitism.
What is the goal of "designing." If everything is a design project; is making new forms important; isn't just fixing what needs fixing an example of "good design" — does the solution need to be novel? (If I design and sew a travelling silverware roll using salvaged cloth and found silverware is that any less of a design project than designing a new folding "hobo knife"?) IF the answer is no, it's not different, then wtf, what am I doing, what am I teaching? If the answer is yes, it is different; do I want to be a "designer" then? Why not just a vernacular crafter or builder? Is this counterculture modernism? Whole earthers did some things like this right? Zomes? Papanek's coffee can radio? A lot of reuse; but with the goal of making things people need in the moment? Still new things; but a repurposed or reconfigured materials based on what is at hand; what is readily available? What is design: making things we want? making things we need? Solving problems? what problems? whose problems? What does it take to let "sustainability" or "restorative design" take a hold in mainstream culture/society? does it need to be more of a religion? more of a political party? Do there need to be more movies or kids shows or whatever that fully embrace doing something about climate change as their theme to affect a change? Regular TV news? obviously the current journalism does little. Why? What else can I speculatively brainstorm? science fiction books are a plenty. Can we make this a WWII like "war effort" to fight the evils of climate change? Reframe everything in the context of us against the greenhouse gasses — C02 increasing is the same as the Nazi's winning Europe? What other ways of framing this are there? I need to try more! That's another potential win for Graphic Design — communicating this in as many ways as is possible.
How does graphic design take carbon back out of the atmosphere? what can communication design (meaning what can signs on substrates) do to get carbon out of the air and into the ground? to keep carbon bottled up? does making bricks of plastic and then shaving them into paper help? does making my own paper from used clothes and scrap paper help? what else can I do??? just picking risograph isn't enough. Just buying some renewable offsets isn't enough. How does this bake into designing generally? to design pedagogy? to society at large?
Stabilizing the climate isn't about reducing emissions, we have to _zero_ our emissions. Instead of just lowering things, we need to stop completel and then actually remove carbon from the atmosphere. Driving an EV doesn't cut it. replacing a car w/ a used bicycle & your lawn with a permaculture garden is a much better start.
to change a system; intervene in small ways around the edges ... at some point that system will react to those changes and be made to change ??? small is not less important than big in a complex system.
Designing Tomorrow's World Today: What design does this; what did the messaging around Ozone depletion look like? What about carson's silent spring related anti-chemical rhetoric? what about WWII "we need you" type things? Oh man, that's a great resource — war time propoganda posters. Does that stuff work now? what is cultural convincing design now? what is design that causes people to follow and just do?
Survival of the most generous interconnected groups.
life-affirming design thing.
Every graphic design problem's answer is not a book; or a poster; or an identity... it is not necessarily a visual design problem; superficial 2D surface decoration isn't the answer to every problem — though the thinking of a designer might reveal an interesting solution still... Can it always be framed as signs on substrates (signs on surfaces?) even if not a visual "answer"?
if sustainability is a cyclical, restorative, resilant, flourishing, non-anthropocentric, maintenance-based, stewardship, co-existing thing...... what? you cannot expect everyone to understand what you mean by sustainability — so do we need other words; or do we just need to say that we mean all those other things when we say sustainability. it is a shorthand sign for all those other words...
Design is about connections. Design is about bringing people and ideas and problems and solutions together.
Design only works when it is trying to achieve a success for the planet; for the welfare of all life.
We do not have unlimited energy. We do not have unlimited resources. How does this change our relationship with designing? With capitalism? with our economic ideals?
What do I want to sustain? What does the welfare of all life really look like? really entail? How do you actually design for this? What kind of design challenges structural inequalities and balances equity, ecology, and economy? Design that collaborates so as to create lasting, positive change in one's community?
Idea: A book printed in an ink that acts as a carbon sink — the book's text only shows up gradually; it has to absorb the carbon to become black!!??
how does graphic designing remove carbon? can a book recycle plastic? what logo captures the most carbon? what typeface uses the least energy and/or ink? what aesthetic is the most decolonizing? whose bias am I perpetuating? does designing matter? is building a wetland better than building a website? is using solar power better than writing all this shit down?
The climate is changing. What does that mean. Social climates, ecological climates, both. How are climate and weather related? how does graphic design show or make this all more understandable? is focusing on climate change even important? is it too big? too abstract? What's the perspective of Drawdown.org on that idea? How does Climate Designers fit into all of this? What framework or ideology should lead? What about AirMiners? as a community do they have any stronger organizing principle or concepts other than just "get carbon out of the atmosphere and into other sinks?" What is the minimum you need to learn to understand this? to have enough people grok this to actually change some behaviors? to change some social and cultural structures? What does a climate friendly museum look like? what does a climate friendly school look like?
Success in climate designers' goals means a future where "climate designers" no longer exist. *Climate designing* becomes plain *designing*. Did you use a grid? did you sequester carbon? did you match your aesthetic to you audience? did you reduce your energy requirements? did you kern your headlines? did you restore spaceship earth? No? well then that's *bad* design.
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A Climate Designer is a designer engaging with the climate in their work and/or teaching.
Let's look at The carbon negative book as an example of work Climate Designers should concept, make, and develop: design objects clearly embodying aspects of climate change. And while a sequestering book isn't likely to exist anytime soon, even the *idea* of objects like that is useful. A book like this would require the absorption of known amount of CO2 to become legible — this becomes a sign for X quantity of carbon and helps one grasp what is otherwise intangible.
I like to call designs like this "Signs signaling Sustainability." This is the real opportunity for Designers taking climate action — turning each design opportunity into a sign signaling sustainability. Make tangible, make understandable something about climate change. This is doable no matter the project; no matter the prompt.
So this seuqestering book example focuses on "visualizing CO2". But, there are myriad other aspects of climate change and sustainability one might signal.
I am *drawn* to [Project DrawDown](https://www.DrawDown.org) as a framework for revealing opportunities for "signs signaling sustainability". Project DrawDown presents the most effective means for pulling carbon out of the atmostphere. Digging into all the "solutions" on Project DrawDown, the ways artists and designers might involve themselves is multitudinous. All kinds of work can be reframed as a "sign signaling sustainability" if you rethink the aims of a prompt so that it fits into an idea from Project DrawDown's table of solutions.
Take for instance Graham Coreil Allen's *Reverberation Crosswalks*. On the surface, these are fun, brightly colored crosswalks — paint on cement and asphalt; not particularly innovative in the "new materials" or "direct carbon capture." But! looking at Project DrawDown solutions, *walkable cities* is the 50th overall reduction solution. Suddenly *Reverberations Crosswalks* signals a sustainable vector forward. The neighborhood around this school is more walkable. You can't not notice the crosswalks, hopefully this makes you more likely to walk yourself. This concept is cheap; fast; easily replicated; can be customized for region, culture, available materials, etc.; AND can help make more people walk in the city. Bam! Climate Designed.
Distributed Solar Photovoltaics is also on Drawdown's list. And Low Tech Magazine's solar powered website signals how we might visualize energy usage; how we might enable new sytems of powering our tools; questions if we really need constant connection; and how aesthetic choices correlate to physical resources even in the digital sphere.
The DC water mark project visualizes increased flooding and water level rise — where these impacts will be felt by you in this place! The water level rings articulates to us "oh shit, this place might be underwater pretty frequently given our current projected future!" Then maybe we can act accordingly and redirect our present towards a future where that is no longer true. Without *seeing* your house or office or favorite park area submerged, even symoblically, you cannot envision an alternative.
- Improvisational Lamps? - Amager Bakke unmade vapor ring? - Print posters on found paper?
These examples communicate additional information as key aspects of their design. They redirect culture towards better *future possibles.* And! this is a great place to work as a graphic designer.
So, I need to actually produce something of substance, something of value. What do I have to offer? What can I write about coherently and succinctly? is that important or is just getting new and different ideas that point in utopian directions all that matters?
- Precious Plastics - Exhibition with sue spaid? - More Climate designers stuff - Lectures! Talks! - Twitch stream more F/LOS design stuff? - Video Essays? Video Lectures? - Ideas... thoughts... philosophies... manifestos... - Carbon Neutral House Things!?
How posthumanist design enables a world in which humans share center stage with nonhumans, with whom we are entangled.
Linus Torvalds's style of development—release early and often, delegate everything you can, be open to the point of promiscuity—came as a surprise. No quiet, reverent cathedral-building here—rather, the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches (aptly symbolized by the Linux archive sites, who'd take submissions from anyone) out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles.
The fact that this bazaar style seemed to work, and work well, came as a distinct shock. As I learned my way around, I worked hard not just at individual projects, but also at trying to understand why the Linux world not only didn't fly apart in confusion but seemed to go from strength to strength at a speed barely imaginable to cathedral-builders.
Eric Raymond / http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/

For more than three decades, transnational corporations have been busy buying up what used to be known as The Commons —everything from our forests and our oceans to our broadcast airwaves and our most important intellectual and cultural works. In This Land is Our Land, acclaimed author David Bollier, a leading figure in the global movement to reclaim the commons, bucks the rising tide of anti-government extremism and free market ideology to show how commercial interests are undermining our collective interests. Placing the commons squarely within the American tradition of community engagement and the free exchange of ideas and information, Bollier shows how a bold new international movement steeped in democratic principles is trying to reclaim our common wealth by modeling practical alternatives to the restrictive monopoly powers of corporate elites.
What comes to mind when you read the phrase “sustainable graphic design?” Is there a particular aesthetic? Is there a particular kind of client? Is there a particular visual trope or particular look or feel? How about a particular message?
Despite ruminating over this question for years, I’ve never quite been satisfied with my half-answers, and I still haven’t found a solid solution. I am currently inclined to believe that there is no single way that sustainable graphic design looks, nor a single “correct” way that it is made (what materials it might be, or what processes it includes can be easily sorted into good, bad, ugly, less bad, etc. — but one golden solution does not exist). However, I do believe there are some particular messages and clients that are not okay if you are a sustainabilitist.
Where does a designer start in sorting this out?
John Ehrenfeld states in the book Flourishing “The key to doing something about sustainability is that you first have to say what you want to sustain.” Ehrenfeld wants to sustain that “all humans and other life should flourish” (pg 23). Using Ehrenfeld’s thinking, Sustainable Graphic Design is design made for clients that believe all life should flourish, design made to promote messages about sustainability-as-flourishing, and design made with materials and processes that promote and sustain the state of flourishing too.
Graphic designers are form makers. Sustainable graphic designers must make formal decisions. How does the sustainable designer concern themselves with the forms and aesthetics of a solution? Are there visual choices that are more sustainable? What form says “I believe that humans and all life should flourish?” Are aesthetics as they relate to sustainability even important?
These are complicated questions.
“To call a work of architecture or design beautiful is to recognize it as a rendition of values critical to our flourishing. A transubstantiation of our individual ideals in material medium.” — Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness, pg. 100
In The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton provides some insights useful in trying to solve aesthetic quandaries around sustainability and formal beauty. Beautiful design embodies and sustains the values you hold dear.
Following Botton’s thinking, sustainable designers should see the non-sustainable as the less-than beautiful, even the ugly. Only truly sustainable things — meaning objects and forms that inspire sustainable ideals — should count as beautiful. Beautiful things ARE sustainable things, and vice versa.
Burgeoning sustainabilitists wishing to de-clutter their lives may come across [a piece by Bruce Sterling](http://viridiandesign.org/) that echoes similar sentiments. Sterling outlines four criteria for sorting through the objects you own so as to decide what to keep and what to discard as a part of your new, sustainably designed life.
If an object in your possession fits into the first three categories (beautiful, sentimental, or utilitarian things), then it is worth keeping. If it falls into “Everything Else” you must be rid of it. Sterling is interested in these categories from the point of view that sustainabilitists should have the right stuff — right meaning the best functioning, most meaningful, prettiest stuff. By virtue of being objects that you really need or want to have around just by being so lovely to look at, these things rise above just plain detritus to become more valuable, more sustainable objects (even if it just means you replace them less often).
When Alain de Botton talks about beauty in design and architecture, I think his “beauty” encompasses all of Sterling’s top 3 categories.
But, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This starts to explain why “what does sustainable graphic design looks like?” is such a hard question to answer. It also explains why Sterling found the need to break his list of criteria four separate entities, and not just “beautiful things” and “everything else.” To me, a nice hammer is functional, utilitarian, and beautiful. To you, it might just be functional. The paintings and drawings I find beautiful are what another might find ugly. The things I find sentimental are probably unique to me. Not everyone has the same idea of what should be sustained as not everyone thinks the same things are beautiful.
Is there really no “correct” aesthetic choice?
A guest came to class to present his work. He designs and builds furniture exclusively from reclaimed materials. The students were very excited about his ideas, but as a group deemed the furniture aesthetically undesirable. The found materials spoke too loudly, and everything looked “Reused” — some of the time in a negative way (purely from an aesthetic stand point). To the students, this proved problematic as it occurs again and again in green and sustainable design projects: the work wears its heart too much on its sleeve; it looks too eco-friendly and unrefined. This was not what they wanted for their work nor for Sustainability as a whole. In their projects, many of the students were actively trying to make work that avoided looking specifically Reused, energy-efficient, or “green.” The work was meant to just be “good graphic design” — that it should look like other design, yet be more “good” in that it also embraced various aspects of Sustainability.
Toward this end, student’s projects took on different shapes, forms, and styles. Of general interest was to avoid the current tropes of “greenness” or “eco-friendly-ness.” To find new visual themes for sustainable design to draw from. Some formal solutions were influenced by their concepts, some forms directly influenced by materials (though not in as earnest a way as the furniture maker’s works), and some just looked like regular old graphic design. Some were fantastical; some were practical. Regardless of their speculativeness, none of the project directions ended up being “wrong” as a sustainable design project. All the student’s projects have in some way attempted to solve what it means to be “sustainable graphic design,” and many aesthetic and conceptual approaches were used.
Each student sorted out for themselves what might be both a sustainable and a beautiful design solution. The one thing all works this term did share in common was the message — not a style, not a material, but a recurring message. The message revolved around variants of “include sustainable thinking more authentically in your life (and through your life, into your design practice).”
My students’s works this term have shown me that a “correct” style may be irrelevant when it comes to what sustainable graphic design should look like. Maybe it is just the message that matters.
In looking to artists and designers from previous movements, innovators we’ve historically documented are known for novel visuals, but got to those novel visuals by exploring new ideologic territory and experimenting with different ways of thinking. Avant garde visuals stemming from these movements were the result of the ideas (or ideals) to come out of their novel thinking, not really the main ideas themselves. Our past is not about style for style’s sake, but style that illuminates a theoretical position (or at least style that is arrived at from a thought process, from a set of values, or from some set of hypotheses).
How do I reconcile what my students have shown me — that all styles can be sustainable — with these thoughts? Sustainability is a new way of thinking, so shouldn’t it carry with it a new style?
I want there to be a concrete solution as to what sustainable graphic design looks like. I want it to be different and special. I want it to be better. However, perhaps that is undesirable; perhaps it is against the ideals of sustainability. Part of flourishing is the opportunity for many diverse solutions to a problem. Nature never typically solves any problem in just one way. Successful, resilient systems have many redundancies — that is what makes them resilient. Why shouldn’t sustainability be able to have many styles and aesthetics? Why should there only be one way something looks to be “sustainable?”
Alain de Botton repeatedly references a line from the French writer Stendahl: “there are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness” (pg 100). Perhaps my thinking on sustainable graphic design’s look must take it’s cue from this. Anything that looks in such a way that it helps promote the flourishing of nature’s interconnected systems will look correct. That doesn’t require a particular style, material, or typeface — just the right ideals or messages.
Is there anything to learn or borrow from Tiddly Scholar?
An amazing tool for writing, creating, interlinking, and ideating. It is what is currently powering this Knowledge Garden.
TiddlyWiki is a rich, interactive tool for manipulating complex data with structure that doesn't easily fit into conventional tools like spreadsheets or wordprocessors.
TiddlyWiki is designed to fit around your brain, helping you deal with the things that won't fit. The fundamental idea is that information is more useful and reusable if we cut it up into the smallest semantically meaningful chunks – tiddlers – and give them titles so that they can be structured with links, tags, lists and macros. Tiddlers use a WikiText notation that concisely represents a wide range of text formatting and hypertext features. TiddlyWiki aims to provide a fluid interface for working with tiddlers, allowing them to be aggregated and composed into longer narratives.
People love using TiddlyWiki. Because it can be used without any complicated server infrastructure, and because it is open source, it has brought unprecedented freedom to everyone to keep their precious information under their own control.
TiddlyWiki was originally created by JeremyRuston and is now a thriving open source project with a busy Community of independent developers.
Allowing time to pass opens the door to adaptability and evolution. We must adopt the gradual change of nature into our design processes. Time in design allows for keeping and improving the good, while discarding the bad. Objects will be allowed to sustain their inherent value and thus receive prolonged use.
Related:
The Libre Designer Zine... coming soon.
Can I include/reuse sections from my old F/LOS Daily: Towards an Open Source Design paper/talk from 2018?
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Towards and understanding of Free/Libre Open Source concepts in Graphic Design and Academia?
A riff on F/LOS Daily Introduction
This zine takes Free/Libre Open Source (F/LOS) as a lens to rethink design practice and pedagogy. The contents provide an overview of F/LOS concepts, figures, and thinking. The narrative inter-connects these concepts with historical design precedent and outcomes of my own and others' design experiments. The publication ends with thoughts for how design practice and pedagogy improve by adopting F/LOS; as well as example projects and prompts that might inspire workshops or classroom experiments.
The realm of Free/Libre Open Source (F/LOS) offers deisgners not only a pragmatic approach reviving how sociocultural artifacts have historically been created, but also a critical approach that, through utilizing ideologically based software and tools (and having far more easy of access to software and tools) intentionally positions itself as antidote to status-quo capitalism. A designer will find more ways to make; less obstructions to their creative vision; and the ability to learn from and to give back to a community.
The goal here is to point out simple to complex opportunities for a designer to start to integrate the practice and ideology of open source into their practice.
For this array of ideas, I'm first going to introduce you to F/LOS if you haven't really had much of an introduction to it in the past. Then I'll try to outline from simple to complex how a designer "liberates" their practice. At the end, and throughout, I'll point out reasons that perhaps this isn't more mainstream incase you're not already thinking that...
The foundations to the Free/Libre Open Source arena has several interesting connections to the greater domain of Graphic Design. As such, I continue to be surprised how little our discipline seems to know about and partake in this world – outside of web design.
I will talk too long about the foundations for F/LOS if I get into it, so I'll skip over some backstory for now – but! the start of free/libre open source is partially related to graphic deisgning.
There is a great anecdote about Donald Knuth and being so offended by the bad typesetting of his computer programming books that he decides to invent a typesetting/layout program and magical font to draw all other fonts; this becomes TeX and Metafont, super great ideas that you can still use today ... And then the origins of freesoftware and GNU are that Richard Stallman is so upset that Xerox won't share the firmware code for a printer that isn't working right, he flies into an ideological, libertarian rage, quits his job, and vows never to make or use non-free software...
If you want to investigate this all more; I highly recommend finding out more about Donald Knuth – he is just an amazing person – and Tex and MetaFont – or even trying to use TeX (MacTex, LaTex, ConTeXt or some other fork)... If you like HTML and CSS you'll probably like "designing" documents in TeX. > check out Overleaf <https://www.overleaf.com/>. There are some cool old videos of him showing people how to use computers in the 80s...
When I am talking about free culture, I am talking about a) cultural production — producing the elements that help define and articulate and spread culture; and b) cultural production that is "free" for anyone to use, build upon, etc. This is free as in freedom culture.
The history of cultural works is building upon, remixing, copying, reusing, repurposing… it is cultural stuff that everyone owns... (Do I need to cite something here? reference something? is my conjecture fine?)
In our present we find ourselves increasingly constrained. Both from how we are allowed to use other's outputs, as well as in the tools and delivery mechanisms themselves — increasingly all of this is less free, more closed, more proprietary, more controlled.
Free as in Freedom, not as in price! (Libre not Gratis) You can still charge money for F/LOS; the point is to not stop someone from doing what they want with a thing (like when you buy physical objects). The point is not to give everyting away and go broke and die destitute in the gutter. I'll try to point out as we go why this is useful.
So, what is the libre designer I say "libre design" instead of "free design" for the same reason – we don't want people to think that this design shouldn't cost anything; that it should be free to have done or to use; but that it should be about increasing people's freedoms, increasing liberty; not locking someone into a software or design ecosystem. Not prohibiting someone from doing what they need to do or want to do with a design tool; with a design.
Basically I mean that the recipe for any design should be shared for anyone to use; and the software, tools, or equipment should be as shareable and attainable too (like you might still have to buy equipment; but ideally its "open" as well so that you can hack and customize and control physical and digital equipment the way you need to while executing the recipe the way you want as well).
I'm interested in this for a few reasons:
The libre designer is a utopian device; a character as in any story; to show you another way, to be emblematic of other ideals. The libre designer stands for design tools and outputs that help return cultural production
Where did my interest in Free Culture come from?
In 2006 I went looking for alternative fuel solutions — I didn't want to rely on fossil fuels for my automobile. This led me to the world of biodiesel and waste vegetable oil conversions … So, in researching this I came across a group called SundaysEnergy in Minneapolis that were doing workshops and such to help others learn to make their own biodiesel AND to convert their own diesel cars to run on vegetable oil in addition to petroleum diesel. The main way we learned and helped each other was through free exchange of information.
(get into this, this is an obvious example of this to most people right?)
Well, we figured our web projects should try to reflect this same open give and take...
Drupal.
Quick explainer...
The end.
(What is the best tool to design this? try to do something with HTML/CSS to pdf?)
I first got into Free/Libre Open Source back in 2006. My first real, intentional entry into this world was using Drupal, a then novel content management system, to build websites. It seemed too good to be true – tons of people all over the world collaborating together to make a family of modules for doing all kinds of complex web things! Here was this amazing thing and it was free to download and free to use for whatever and however I chose? At the time I could never do too much more than occasionally participate in discussions around theming... but! Woah!
I ended up druapaling for a while... and then when I started getting much more into thinking about how design might be more sustainable, I was thikning about vernacular buildings[How buildings learn by Stewart Brand] and then how open source software like drupal evolved over time and adapted much like vernacular biuldings... and bam! I thought, oh, maybe something about f/los was more sustainable? I was also thinking that something like a typeface was important to make more accessible to more people for the purposes of sustainablity – ... and again, Libre type accomplished this...
The last sort of other path that helped lead me to "Libre designing" was being a publication designer and having a lot of projects with little to no art budget. So, let's say you're told you have basically $0 extra dollars for stock photos or hiring your own photographer, what are you going to do? Well, its another space I found – public domain and creative commons licensed images out among the piles of the internet... We'll get directly into this soon, but I just wanted to mention that my actual deisgn practice, mitigating the constraints of low budget projects, aslo accidentally led me to the ideas in the presentation...
So I've dabbled off and on with libre fonts, OS tools like Drupal, and then the occasional creative commons and public domain licesnsed imagery, etc.
A note on licenses: There are so many... we can dive into this more at the end if anyone cares; but in general there are truely free/libre licenses like GPL, CC share alikes, Apache; and then there are permissive license, MIT being the most used/known one. Basically, the libre licenses say that if you want to use this, great, but whatever you use it in also has to be open and shared in the same way. the permissive licenses say you can use this, and all you have to do is try to make it clear that you used this in your program or code somehwere; you _do not_ have to share your code the way I've shared mine... One is viral; one is isn't...
A typical internet search for “Open Source Design” returns The Open Source Design Manifesto by Garth Braithwaite, a designer working on open source projects at Adobe. Braithwaite’s manifesto makes for a simple starting point in understanding how F/LOS impacts Graphic Design. The manifesto reads:
I will:
- find opportunities to design in the open
- share my design experiences; both the good and the bad
- find time for meaningful projects
- openly participate in design discussions
- work with other designers by choice
- improve my toolbox
In a 2013 talk called “Designers Can Open Source,” Braithwaite explains actions and behaviors designers might adopt for the “open-ness” the manifesto aims to inspire. The main tenant is to share more: “Sharing process, especially the failures, really helps” and “post as you are working, show how things evolve.” This creates an ecosystem where designers are more collaborative and more open with their neighbors — more unselfconscious — making design knowledge more effectively shared.
Contemporary open source understanding (Braithwaite’s included) comes from Eric Raymond’s essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar. In the essay, Raymond analyzes Linus Torvalds’ (and his distributed hacker crew’s) development of the Linux Kernel. Raymond found magic in Torvalds’ “release early, release often” mantra and distributed method of working. Raymond points to the maxim “Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone,” or “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow,” as key to Linus’s (and Linux’s) success. Get as many self-selected, expert users as possible to tinker with a design; then ask those same users to share everything wrong they find. As fixes are made, redistribute updates as fast as possible back to the group. Problem finding and solving is accelerated (duplicate searches end quickly since redistribution of fixes is rapid). This was crucial to Linux’s stability and rapid improvement.
Braithwaite is encouraging designers to adopt the same shared, distributed model in hopes that many skilled eyes will also make light work. , Graphic designers aim to find the best visual solution to a problem, but do we show “buggy” ideas to clients, colleagues, or stake holders as part of our process in such an unselfconcious way? This is done easily within the classroom or in the studio between colleagues: hang work on the walls; pass designs between desks/desktops as they develop; look over each other’s shoulders. It can take place out in the world by using services like Dribbble, Behance, and Github. But, open designing is not about accruing comments like “cool!” or “nice work!” or “wow! what’s that great esoteric typeface!” The goal is real, functional solutions to unsolved problems. Designers and audience members other than ourselves might see things differently, catch things we have missed, or have a solution waiting that we have not found on our own (or have not found yet, thus shortening our solution’s path).
The community aspects that Braithwaite and Raymond point to are not all there is to F/LOS — and not all that might interest a Graphic Designer. Torvalds was working on the Linux Kernel to aid in the completing of a larger project: GNU. GNU was created by Richard Stallman as “an operating system that is free software — that is, it respects users’ freedom.” This is where the Free/Libre part of Free/Libre Open Source came from.
Stallman predicated Free software on the following essential freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
A program is free software if it gives users adequately all of these freedoms. Otherwise, it is non free.
Free software defined by Stallman values users, it does not want to enslave a user to the will of a program or the will of that program’s developer. Stallman’s motivation in 1983 was to maintain the share-and-share-alike, vernacular-like model computer programmers were accustomed to where all are able to build upon existing works. Stallman saw this under attack (most accounts claim that “free software” was birthed when Xerox asked a peer programmer not to share a printer’s source code with Stallman). He was also motivated by being a good citizen.
“I consider that the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way.” — Richard Stallman
Neither Braithwaite nor Raymond deal with any ethical perspective in their discussions and analysis of open source. Neither take a strong point of view as to why making should be done this way other than that “open design” arrives at better designs while saving resources. But “better” in their contexts is about less bugs and faster improvements, not “better” ethically. Corporate culture has embraced the “open source” part of F/LOS, but what about the Stallman-esque Free/Libre piece, does that have implications for designing?
In “Designer as Author” Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby propose that designers “develop a parallel design activity that questions and challenges industrial agendas.” This is design that is in opposition to mainstream culture. Stallman’s ideals play wonderfully with this “critical design” perspective — Stallman is promoting critical software. Free Software challenges proprietary software’s agendas. Designers fully embracing “free-ness” in their software end up precluding themselves from the normal range of design tools, but open themselves to new territory better representing socially conscious and sustainability related content (the ideology of respecting a user [aka, an audience] matches nicely with a socially aware design practice). Switching one’s software in this context is a critical act.
Designer's formulating practices around “design is political” or “design is ideological” will find Stallman’s position more valuable than the pure pragmatics of Braithwaite’s “share more.” Using collective making to more rapidly come to a solution is not always the important bit from F/LOS — the good citizen-ship can be! That tools can now reflect one’s ethics is a valuable discovery. And, though F/LOS design tools might not always be possible, protecting an audience member’s freedom is. Stallman’s golden rule still holds true: “… The Golden Rule requires that if I like a program [design] I must share it with other people who like it.”
Are there limitations to how “free” designers can be — do you have to create files with Adobe Creative Cloud? do you have to use proprietary fonts?
The common language of a place.
This can be a style, a material, an inflection, a way of looking at things. It is not limited merely to architecture or language, it can be connected to culture, signs, anything.
We as visual designers are not precluded from accessing the techniques and ideas of F/LOS. Graphic Designers can integrate F/LOS into their practice both pragmatically and conceptually: more and more (and better and better) tools exist from this realm (Github, Inkscape, Nodebox, etc.). F/LOS offers chances for design as a social critique; design that returns to unselfconcious, vernacular roots (open source isn’t new, it is basically the way that human creative endeavors have historically come into existence ); and design that serves more than just stereotypical clients and business needs (or, can serve those needs, but even better (faster and w/ less bugs!)). In choosing F/LOS alternatives in software a designer can say “I (and my tools) have different ethics than you (and your tools).” Designer’s adopting F/LOS critique the status quo. And even simply trying to make things with F/LOSS makes us better designers. Experiencing (or struggling with) new tools reminds that “goodness” in an interface, typeface or other artifact is often based on familiarity — when things do not behave as expected they appear less good, whether or not this is objectively true.
Making with F/LOS tools and ideals has pedagogical implications: all designers become teachers and students. A design file that one can open up and poke around in is useful for anyone to learn from (how’d they organize these layers? what makes that loopity-loop animate?). Since everyone can see the source code information transfer can go back and forth through many different paths, not just from the top down. F/LOS tools are also likely to use open file formats that can be used across a wide variety of other tools and mediums — so you aren’t locked into one program (even if the program’s filetype is specific, the many filetypes are really some type of XML, so you can still “read” the file with a text editor to get what is going on). It’s not just having access to files that is important, deciding to use F/LOSS means you have access to more kinds of tools; more options for making are available. There are F/LOS tools that do not exist in offerings from Adobe or Autodesk (the Spiro spline drawing tool which finds its way into InkScape and FontForge, or generative design tools like NodeBox and Processing). Seeing other kinds of vector drawing options might open space for one to make new things. If you believe that as an educator part of your role is to build on the knowledge of the past to create new knowledge you must adopt F/LOS.
“Goodness” in a design practice now includes being open to sharing one’s work (failures and successes; code, files, etc.). Goodness also means building on works when and where you can (and letting others build and re-use your works). By increasing the variety of tools and techniques at one’s disposal (by utilizing open source tools, even in addition to proprietary ones — we don't need to fully abandon our old tools and operating systems to be “libre designers” — one massively increases possibilities for formal output) a design practice can be more good. And, goodness also means operating ethically — attempting to make your designs ethical in the context of the golden rule (do unto others…), or in egalitarian access, or in not enslaving or entrapping an audience to the will of a client or a designer.
So, the next time you go looking fonts, icons, templates, stock illustrations, or frameworks for a design project look for free/libre open source ones. F/LOS offers up not only a pragmatic approach reviving how we have historically created socio-cultural artifacts, but also a critical approach that through utilizing ideologically based software and tools intentionally positions itself in opposition to mainstream modern-techno-capitalism.
What can I offer people easily?
Whats a good order of things?
Okay, so what is F/LOS? Why are these issues important? what does this have to do with Capitalism and Sustainability and Graphic Design and Pedagogy and whatever else? Why should we care about this? what are the pragmatics?
A basic framework for a workshop:
Okay, so as I do the workshop, in new and more and different places... do we fork the old code? does everyone have to have a gitlab or github account or something? Is that another way the designing is open? people all over, different classes, different students, are all adding to and sharing an ever growing design resource manual? Libre Designing!?
Also, depending on how much time a class or department wants to give a lecture/workshop, well, we could edit design information on wikipedia? or just gather a set of images from flickr commons and then make some posters; or just use typefaces others have already collected to make some font specimens, it doesn't have to be everything or a book every time the workshop happens?
For whatever "readings" get chosen — make sure they are all Open — they need to be public domain or CC or something where they are free to copy, manipulate, redistribute, etc.
or, Why Free Culture makes sense (cents?)
Utilizing free — free as in freedom — resources as a designer has a number of immediate practical implications.
There are however differences in the “free-ness” or liberated ness or open ness of works of cultural production. There is the Public Domain — and so these things are useable by anyone for anything and you need not even ask for permission or credit the works. Then there are the various kinds of Creative Commons licenses (CC0 = Public Domain); there is also the Free Art License, and there are also various software licenses that in different degrees might also apply to creative art and design works (for example, OFL applies to typefaces, though you could also use GPL or Apache or MIT for typefaces, as they are really computer files/programs).
Free (No cost/Gratis) as useful side effect of Free (Freedom/Libre) cultural works:
If you are working for say, a non-profit cultural organization, you might need to budget concious — maybe they can't afford a typeface license for a ton of computers, or at all; maybe they have no photo/art budget; maybe you want to do something else cool that requires money for printing/production, and so need to save on tools and images and new type — This is another place "free" comes in!? And it can even be a selling point for what you want to do.
so, Why don't designers open source?
Part of FLOSD and The Libre Designer
In Discussion and collaboration with Henry Becker
So you want to liberate your designing?
Explain what liberating design is? What is Free Culture? > Free Culture
Let's walk through some options from the simplest to the most complex.
The Libre Designer is an ideal. If we look at the history of Cultural Production, for the most part that history is “free” — meaning that as cultural ideas are put out into the world, they are then built upon and remixed by those around.
Contemporary design practice is no longer like this — at least not the visual design parts.
Why does this matter!?
If you wish to regain some aspect of "freed cultural production" then there are several ways one can start.
The by far most easy way is to 1. pick image sources that come from the realm of free culture, and 2. pick typefaces that come from the realm of free culture.
So why pick "free" images? well for one, they are usually literally free. This makes it particularly easy to start.
Free images can come from several places. they might be old, and so just be in the public domain. This means anyone can use them for anything they want, build on them, repurpose them, etc.
There are also plenty of ways that images are given over to free cultural use without just by being old enough. Services like Unsplash and Undraw release new images that have open licensing
(Fuck do we need to go through licensing? maybe do this as a foot note, and have a glossary in the back, one part is different licenses)
The most used image on earth IS an image of earth.
NASA, as a US government institution, in producing images, automatically has them in the public domain? there needs to be better wording for this.
Anyway, this blue marble image, it is in the pbulic domain because it was created by NASA > section 101 and 105 of the us Copyright act > copyright protection does not apply to any work created by the US Government...
so, what is this image?
Examples of the NASA blue marble in all sorts of funny places?
The troubling part of the Public Domain when used like this is that these creations that use the Blue Marble ARE not free, neither in price, nor in copyright. You can use a public domain image to CREATE a copyrighted, protected, non-free culture image.
This is where the ideology of Richard Stallman and The Four Freedoms come in.
From The Libre Designer (020200727)
We'll start from the most clear and concrete things and end with the big, abstract, blurry ways to liberate your designing.
The easiest way to get started on this adventure is to change the photos, illustrations, icons, etc. that you might use in a project. This is easiest for several reasons:
What we're looking for when we are looking for F/LOS imagery is imagery that is somehow licensed for anyone to do with it as they want. This often takes the form of "public domain" or "creative commons" or sometimes the "free art" or "libre art" license.
Once you have liberated your imagery and graphics, the next level is your fonts. Almost everything will work still with your existing hardware and software, but it is a magnitude harder to find, download and install some of the F/LOS fonts compared to just images...
There are some open source fonts already installed on the average computer; and adobe fonts brings in some of the google font library; so you can just turn a few on there to get started super easily
Google fonts is doing a lot of cool new stuff. They're hitting this variable font thing pretty hard, and part of that means that almost any newer typeface is being converted to a variable font. This also means that almost all the newer google fonts have the full 9 weights + italics, so getting a font from google fonts these days doesn't really mean its limited in glyphs, weights, quality, whatever
A cool aspect of these fonts then is also you can not only get the fonts to use on your machine(s), share them with your clients and printers and friends and colleagues without worry... you can also for the most part find and download the acutal source files used to to make th fonts. Does the F/LOS typeface you like not have a certain character or weight? well download the UFOs and edit it! Do you want to make a custom typeface for a client as part of their identity? find the thing closest to your vision from the F/LOS world and tweak it!
The universe of F/LOS fonts can sometimes feel limited... and can sometimes feel less-than in terms of quality. I would say that in general, while you might not end up with as many typographic nicities; real small caps, different styles of numbers, etc. this isn't always the case. Many of these F/LOS fonts are designed to serve populations, users, audiences, etc. historically not served.
Often over time F/LOS fonts evolve to have more features just like software, etc. Raleway for example was launched w/ one thin weight; but was forked and the incarnation that lives on google fonts has 9 weights, and italics, and even an extra display version, raleway dots.
The key to all of this is to properly mentally frame this for yourself. Try to think of everything I show you or talk about today not as direct replacements for your regular processes or tools; but as reasonable alternatives – they might do things differently; but you'll be able to end up at the same final result: well designed graphic objects...
If you've gotten this far, you might start to think about file formats – how can i still share or fix things if I for some reason don't have access to what I need?? file formats are way more universal; standard in the F/LOS world.
For example, .SVG is a standard, open file format for web AND print. Illustrator can also read it. So can Sketch. So can Figma. SVG is really an XML document, so you can even read/edit SVGs with textedit or whatever coding IDE you like.
This is true across the F/LOS ecosystem. Usually, whatever file formats are used are open; or if not, then they try to be some sort of plaintext (XML or other sort of text doc) to try and make readability even without the right tool, possible... Scribus documents are also really just XMl files, look you can see more or less what's happening here in VSCode; and I can even edit the file here, save it, and when I reopen it in Scribus my document will have a new page. Here's what happens when you try to open an illustrator file in VSCode...
So, you've changed image sources; you've changed fonts; you liberated your tools and your computer and OS... how to liberate your works?
As you start down this path you will find and see so many more opportunities... (like jitsi meet instead of zoom)
Now, your software, and maybe even your hardware, are liberated. You can use images, fonts, and programs that may be bent to your whims and will and flight of fancy. Great. How do you do something with them now that embraces all the same ideals as a process for producing work and future works?
How can you make your making liberated too?
How to apply F/LOS to designing?
To help share more; to make it clear
What else? (braithwaite OS design vid) / If designers participate this way what does it look like? Garth Braithwaite: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djf8sLjtbzU>
(evolved from Garth Braithwaite
It is not just that designers CAN open source; but the benefits are so good; we're foolish not to be more open. And there are some designers trying out these methods — but as an industry we're still just really tied to.
In general; this stuff isn't easy. It's hard to just set out and do all of this – even the imagery and fonts stuff because there is expectation that designer's use certain type from certain places; you might be asked specifically to go to certian photographers or certain stock photo sites or be given already unfree things to work with. Choosing to abandon adobe and apple... well, you probably can't do that if you have any sort of normal design job... ????
In general; the main thing keeping us from this is the desire of the status quo not to change. Neoliberalism works best when we all do what it wants. "free markets" not "free software".
The goal of this isn't actually full F/LOS adoption. In our actual work, it isn't always possible to abandon everything every one else is using and doing. Clients will need you sometimes to make a book in InDesign; you might need to work in AfterEffects to work with your colleagues. Instead of taking the extreme view, think of this really as a way to do more; to have more tools; to have more ways of doing things; to be able to make more formal experiments; to better tie formal choices to contexts.
How might this help you remove bias? what other kinds of interfaces might you now see and experience? What other kinds of interfaces and systems and opinions will you run into???
Designers are supposed to be designing fabulous interfaces. But! almost all of us use the same software on the same computers and so have an incredibly limited range of ideas for what makes an interface; for what makes a good interface; for what makes an accessible interfaces...
Think about this: the way desktop publishing works on a computer, it was designed by a handful of people in the 80s, specifically to be done on a tiny mac at the time...you know like 8 key people decided a direction and a bunch of semiotic symbols for how to do things, for what features and icons and whatever else exist in these places... How much has changed since then? how much the same are these programs and ecosystems? Can Steve jobs, Warnock, and (Page maker dude)'s ideas and decisions they made leading up to 1984 still be the right ones in the present we find ourselves in? Maybe some of these other tools grasp that ???
There are tools here that don't exist on a mac or windows machine; that's rad!
“To call a work of architecture or design beautiful is to recognize it as a rendition of values critical to our flourishing. A transubstantiation of our individual ideals in material medium.”
— Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness, pg. 100
To define sustainable graphic design we must first define what it is we are sustaining.
Related:
August 24, 1978; Amherst, Massachusetts
Can I find photos of this?? > http://scua.library.umass.edu/umarmot/delevigne-lionel/
Land Acknowledgement?
This talk is called Towards a New Design Commons
Let's start with something sure to hook a room full of design educators: An Ellen Lupton reference.
In her 2006 lecture Univers Strikes Back, Dr. Lupton says about Thinking with Type that her book was not meant for professional designers, but for everyone else, for everyone deserves access to the tools and ideas of good typography.
Expanding this out, well, I think everyone on Spaceship Earth needs design, and everyone benefits from access to design tools, recipes, and resources of the highest level.
Design is for everyone. And we need a better design culture that provides more equitable access to the tools and ideas of good design. We need a New Design Commons.
David Bollier defines the commons as everything we collectively own and feel obliged to pass on to future generations in perptuity. These are resources and ideas that we have moral and community ties to.
Noble Prize winner Elinor Ostrom points out that commons aren't just resources and ideas; but that a functioning commons is really a self-organizing social system AROUND these resources.
A design commons contains the resources of design: fonts, images, tools, recipes, etc. A design commons is also the social and technical systems required for sharing and building designs; and in a design commons new designs and designers must be able to build and remix all that came before freely.
And, I will use an acronym, F/LOSS, several times — this refers to Free / Libre Open Source Software. This is software that operates in terms of communities and are often examples of their own micro-commons. You are free to use FLOS tools as you wish, you have access directly to the source code so you can modify and improve the tools to your purposes.
This means free as in freedom; this is not meant to imply free as in price. This is Libre not Gratis. A new design commons must be about the freedom for people to design for their own local, environmental needs.
While working on this talk, Adobe purchased online prototyping tool Figma. Figma is a new and successful vector software that runs in the browser and makes design collaboration about as easy as is possible. Figma also has a community section where Figma designers themselves, as well as designers and educators from around the world post plugins, templates, and advice for how to do pretty much whatever you want in Figma — even things it wasn't meant to do out of the box, like print designs!
Adobe says that Figma will remain the same; but given their track record with other acquisitions, we'll just have to see.
This acquisition follows a 2019 event where, under pressure to follow the US sanctions against Venezuela, Adobe deactivated the creative cloud accounts of anyone who had registered for the tools with a Venezuelan address.
This signals pretty clearly: These tools are not yours. Even if you pay our rent on time, access may be revoked at anytime. This is intellectual and cultural enclosure (Peter Linebaugh talks about "enclosure" in his historical research on the english commons, where rich land owners literally walled off areas formerly available to any commoner). You can be walled off from your files and programs at the whim of tech aristocrats.
As a design educator I find this problematic. Our tools aren’t really ours; our access can just be removed, despite paying our "rent" — we RENT our tools now, we don’t own the tools of our labor anymore! And If we no longer own or control the tools of our labor how are we supposed to reliably generate NEW knowledge and build upon all that has come before us? Are we setting up ourselves and our students for future failure by relying on tools, resources, and content that at any point can be de-accessed?
One way around Adobe and big tech's software as service traps is to fully embrace F/LOSS.
What's important about FLOSS though isn't the software it is the community of commons around these softwares. A designer at Adobe, Garth Braithwaite, was inspired by his time working on open source projects, notably the formerly Adobe project Brackets, to write an open source manifesto FOR design. Basically, why if developers have fully embraced open source, why haven't designers? Braithwaite's takeaways for a design commons are that we should share more with each other, that we should be less self-conscious, and we should try to participate with people and use more tools and expand our opportunities for sharing and working.
I will:
- find opportunities to design in the open
- share my design experiences; both the good and the bad
- find time for meaningful projects
- openly participate in design discussions
- work with other designers by choice
- improve my toolbox
What Braithwaite describes is how human creativity USED to work. For the majority of human history cultural production was open, shareable, and remixable. We built upon each other's ideas, and this creative work happened in local contexts in ways that were often to the direct benefit of the communities involved.
A clear design example of this is vernacular design, or as Stewart Brand describes it in his book How Buildings Learn, common designs by common people for local necessity. Neighbors sharing with neighbors over time, using the constraints of locality (local weather, local materials, local needs) to adapt and evolve regional styles and reusable solutions.
This is the new design commons ideal — everyone has access to the tools and resources of designing, and we can get back to local, regional, necessary solutions that help communities on the ground.
The real issues of "common-ing" design are not people's abilities or tools, its intellectual property rules as they exist in the US in particular. These issues of open share and share-alike cultural production are that we have the wrong contemporary intellectual philosophies — we want to project intellectual property AS property. Instead of protecting our work more we should utilize ways that allow us to be acknowledged, to be attributed, but give our peers — gives everyone — the ability to utilize designs.
Creative Commons, now 20 yrs old, already includes everything we need. The most effective license by creative commons for a new design commons is the by attribution share alike license. This says you can use a work however you want, as long as its attributed back to where you found it, and that people get to keep sharing this and building upon it moving forward. Basically, what the new design commons needs are Design Bibliographies — how do we attribute all the bits and pieces that lead us to our new work.
Once you have accepted that a design commons is preferable to trying to control everyone's intellectual property usage, there are plenty of material and communities out there.
Creative commons used to run its own image search, but this was handed off to Automattic, the makers of Wordpress. It's now called Openverse. Openverse searches a variety of different sites and libraries online that have all been marked as various flavors of creative commons or that are in the public domain.
Flickr also maintains Flickr Commons, and have recently created a new foundation to help strengthen the commons — meaning getting more reusable work and more collaboration — onto their platform.
For typography you can go to Google Fonts or Velvetyne or The League of Moveable Type as places to start — there are a lot of open licensed fonts though, this is the most vibrant "design commons" set of communities I think. And it is in part because of what Ellen Lupton's thoughts were getting at: PEOPLE NEED TYPOGRAPHY in our digital age, so underserved languages and scripts have been relying on other ways of creating typefaces, etc. that are more of a commons, more of an open source, approach, not just waiting for some foundry to sell them something.
Michael Mandiberg and xtine burrough, along with a huge array of collaborators, have brought us the book(s) Digital Foundations. These are creative commons licensed works, written and developed using wikis, where a community of designers and educators have taken Bauhaus style visual fundamentals and translated them to digital tools. One text is written with the Adobe creative cloud in mind, and another variant redoes all the exercises for F/LOS software.
The Center for Artistic Activism makes their resources available with creative commons licenses as well.
Figma community...
Precious plastics and Open source publishing
The AIGA Design Educators community does have something for the design commons already setup: Design Teaching Resource. It's a peer-populated platform for educators to share assignments, teaching materials, outcomes, and project reflections. What do not see there however, is any kinds of "self-organizing social systems" to get us to both SHARE and SHARE-alike, nothing even encourages you to re-contribute your edits to a project that you borrowed. So it isn't that we aren't already common-ing our designs and design resources, its that we need to be more conscious and purposeful about doing this.
A New Design Commons is a utopian gesture. We need utopian gestures like this to keep us, as Stephen Duncombe says, from being constrained by the tyranny of the present.
Using the commons, well this is a parallel design direction that critiques the status quo proprietary systems. Trying to embrace a design commons is a way to question designing for the market. Let's build a better design culture. The goal is to make designing accessible for everyone and preserving spaceship earth, making it a liveable, accessible place for all.
The tools, resources, frameworks that allow one to design what they NEED.
This lecture takes Free/Libre Open Source (F/LOS) as a lens to rethink design practice and pedagogy, and provides an overview of F/LOS concepts, figures, and thinking. The narrative inter-connects these concepts with historical design precedent and outcomes from a class, “Special Topics in Graphic Design: Open Source.” The presentation ends with thoughts for how design practice and pedagogy improve by adopting F/LOS.
Special Topics in Graphic Design: Open Source ran from January to May of 2018 at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). The course asked students to explore F/LOS software and ideologies in producing graphic design. Other than “earnestly experiment with F/LOS tools,” the main projects were working with the MICA library on an identity and print materials, and collaboratively writing, designing, and printing a book that was exemplary of and about our F/LOS exercises and experiments. Each week we discussed how F/LOS’s ideas and technologies might serve the students’ (and the greater design communities) needs better than mainstream offerings.
Three lectures and workshops at MICA inspired the class’ origins. Loraine Furter and Eric Schrijver, members of a collective known as “Open Source Publishing,” ran two workshops: one using public domain resources in one’s design practice, and one customizing open source fonts. David Crossland of Google Fonts visited MICA and demoed new open source variable typefaces that Google and Type Network , collaborated on. Ending his lecture, Crossland explained how he ended up working at Google Fonts in the first place: being a lover and supporter of F/LOS. With Furter and Schrijver’s examples for how design practice might embrace F/LOS, and through casual conversation with Crossland about his libre font and software background, F/LOS ideals and tools felt like good exploratory territory for a graphic design course.
A search for “Open Source Design” online returns The Open Source Design Manifesto by Garth Braithwaite, a designer working on open source projects at Adobe. Braithwaite’s manifesto made a simple starting point in understanding how F/LOS impacts graphic design. The manifesto reads:
I will:
- find opportunities to design in the open
- share my design experiences; both the good and the bad
- find time for meaningful projects
- openly participate in design discussions
- work with other designers by choice
- improve my toolbox
In a 2013 talk called “Designers Can Open Source,” Braithwaite explains actions and behaviors designers might adopt for the “open-ness” the manifesto aims to inspire. The main tenant is to share more: “Sharing process, especially the failures, really helps” and “post as you are working, show how things evolve.” This creates an ecosystem where designers are more collaborative and more open with their neighbors — more unselfconscious — making design knowledge more effectively shared. Taking Braithwaite’s ideas to heart, our class made sharing and communicating a goal. To facilitate this we moved our class’ project files to repositories on Github (Braithwaite mentions Github as a tool for sharing and collaborating for codebases, we tried it for designing). We wanted to earnestly “design in the open.”
Contemporary open source understanding (Braithwaite’ included) comes from Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar. In the essay, Raymond analyzes Linus Torvalds’ (and his distributed hacker crew’s) development of the Linux Kernel. Raymond found magic in Torvald’s “release early, release often” mantra and distributed method of working. Raymond points to the maxim “Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone,” or “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow,” as key to Linus’s (and Linux’s) success. Get as many self-selected, expert users as possible to tinker with a design; then ask those same users to share everything wrong they find. As fixes are made, redistribute updates as fast as possible back to the group. Problem finding and solving is accelerated (duplicate searches end quickly since redistribution of fixes is rapid). This was crucial to Linux’s stability and rapid improvement.
Braithwaite is encouraging designers to adopt the same shared, distributed model in hopes that many skilled eyes will also make light work. , Graphic designers aim to find the best visual solution to a problem, but do we show “buggy” ideas to clients, colleagues, or stake holders as part of our process in such an unselfconcious way? This is done easily within the classroom or in the studio between colleagues: hang work on the walls; pass designs between desks/desktops as they develop; look over each other’s shoulders. It can take place out in the world by using services like Dribbble, Behance, and Github. But, open designing is not about accruing comments like “cool!” or “nice work!” or “wow! what’s that great esoteric typeface!” The goal is real solutions to unsolved problems. Designers and audience members other than ourselves might see things differently, catch things we have missed, or have a solution waiting that we have not found on our own (or have not found yet, thus shortening our solution’s path).
Our Special Topics: Open Source class had moved our project files to Github, and we also decided to utilize Github’s issue queue to aid in communal problem solving — making sure we lent each other our eyes. Issues let a user reveal found problems to the “community” (in this case our class, but in general the maintainer and anyone else interested in a project) and then request help with solution finding. Peers peruse each other’s queues attempting aid by providing thoughts; sharing a tutorial; or downloading, tweaking, and re-publishing a fix. For our class, utilizing issue queues kept us a community beyond the classroom when at our homes or working from separate studios across campus. It was also incredibly complicated! For visual design projects the Github “distributed critique” made it hard to get deeper into each others’ experiments that just superficials; it was easy to provide basic visual feedback — asking a question isn’t hard; theorizing isn’t too much work; throwing up a screen shot or two is easy; a “this is working, that isn’t” is no problem. But, forking someone’s project, opening the files, and trying to make sense of design decisions AND understand the context and content of that direction? That required time that not many ended up undertaking. Our class found what most open source communities have found — a small percentage of the community are actually responsible for the majority of the work; most “members” merely download and attempt to use the software, code, utility, whatever, not actually help problem solve and improve.
The community aspects that Braithwaite and Raymond point to are not all there is to F/LOS — and not all that might interest a Graphic Designer. Torvalds was working on the Linux Kernel to aid in the completing of a larger project: GNU. GNU was created by Richard Stallman as “an operating system that is free software — that is, it respects users’ freedom.” This is where the Free/Libre part of Free/Libre Open Source came from.
Stallman predicated Free software on the following essential freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
A program is free software if it gives users adequately all of these freedoms. Otherwise, it is non free.
Free software defined by Stallman values users, it does not want to enslave a user to the will of a program or the will of that program’s developer. Stallman’s motivation in 1983 was to maintain the share-and-share-alike, vernacular-like model computer programmers were accustomed to where all are able to build upon existing works. Stallman saw this under attack (most accounts claim that “free software” was birthed when Xerox asked a peer programmer not to share a printer’s source code with Stallman). He was also motivated by being a good citizen.
“I consider that the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way.” — Richard Stallman
Braithwaite nor Raymond deal with any ethical points in their discussions or analysis of open source. Neither take point of view as to why making should be done this way other than that “open design” arrives at better designs while saving resources. But “better” in that context is about less bugs and faster improvements, not “better” morals. Corporate culture has embraced the “open source” part of F/LOS, , what about the Stallman-esque Free/Libre piece, does that have implications for designing?
In “Designer as Author” Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby propose that designers “develop a parallel design activity that questions and challenges industrial agendas.” This is design that is in opposition to mainstream culture. Stallman’s ideals play wonderfully with this “critical design” perspective — Stallman is promoting critical software. Free Software challenges proprietary software’s agendas. Designers fully embracing “free-ness” in their software end up precluding themselves from the normal range of design tools, but open themselves to new territory better representing socially conscious and sustainability related content (the ideology of respecting a user [an audience] matches nicely with a socially aware design practice). Switching one’s software in this context is a critical act.
Students in Special Topics: Open Source formulating practices around “design is political” or “design is ideological” found Stallman’s position more valuable than the pure pragmatics of Braithwaite’s “share more.” Using collective making to more rapidly come to a solution was not the important bit from F/LOS — the good citizen-ship was! That tools might now reflect one’s ethics was a valuable discovery. But, somewhat ironically, in adopting full libre practices for ideological reasons, collaboration can be more difficult. A peer’s set of tools may no longer be your tools. So, though F/LOS tools might not always be possible, protecting an audience member’s freedom is. Stallman’s golden rule still holds true: “… The Golden Rule requires that if I like a program [design] I must share it with other people who like it.”
The Special Topics: Open Source class collaborated with MICA’s library on new print and signage materials. The library thinks of itself as an open entity within the school — the ideals of Stallman’s and F/LOS at large are mirrored by the Library’s director and staff (free-ness of information, open access, collaboration, etc.). There were limitations to how “free” we could be — we had to create files with Adobe Creative Cloud (it is a standard toolset for MICA offices), and we had to use the institution’s fonts. Though software and fonts were non-free, students did still go to great lengths to find ways of using F/LOS content and the share-and-share alike mentalities. One student utilized the MICA library’s personal archives for imagery. These are often works in the public domain, with no known copyright holder, or that the MICA Library directly holds the rights to. Reusing and remixing in the vernacular/open source vein is now a possibility for future library works. The class used issue queues to help divide and assign work; and the library staff were able to have access to the repositories to provide some input. The MICA brand guidelines themselves can be made more powerful if following institutional “open sourcing” is the goal. Instead of blindly following brand guides, find holes and places for improvement. There was one “bug” that the class asked the MICA communications department about for the library materials: what default set of icons should MICA school projects use? The communications team didn’t have an answer, and since then have been exploring what the best way to solve a branded icon set institutionally with some of our work as starting point.
We as visual designers are not precluded from accessing the techniques and ideas of F/LOS. Graphic Designers can integrate F/LOS into their practice both pragmatically and conceptually: more and more (and better and better) tools exist from this realm (Github, Inkscape, Nodebox, etc.). F/LOS offers chances for design as a social critique; design that returns to unselfconcious, vernacular roots (open source isn’t new, it is basically the way that human creative endeavors have historically come into existence ); and design that serves more than just stereotypical clients and business needs (or, can serve those needs, but even better (faster and w/ less bugs!)). In choosing F/LOS alternatives in software a designer can say “I (and my tools) have different ethics than you (and your tools).” Designer’s adopting F/LOS critique the status quo. And even simply trying to make things with F/LOSS makes us better designers. Experiencing (or struggling with) new tools reminds that “goodness” in an interface, typeface or other artifact is often based on familiarity — when things do not behave as expected they appear less good, whether or not this is objectively true.
Making with F/LOS tools and ideals has pedagogical implications: all designers become teachers and students. A design file that one can open up and poke around in is useful for anyone to learn from (how’d they organize these layers? what makes that loopity-loop animate?). Since everyone can see the source code information transfer can go back and forth through many different paths, not just from the top down. F/LOS tools are also likely to use open file formats that can be used across a wide variety of other tools and mediums — so you aren’t locked into one program (even if the program’s filetype is specific, the many filetypes are really some type of XML, so you can still “read” the file with a text editor to get what is going on). It’s not just having access to files that is important, deciding to use F/LOSS means you have access to more kinds of tools; more options for making are available. There are F/LOS tools that do not exist in offerings from Adobe or Autodesk (the Spiro spline drawing tool which finds its way into InkScape and FontForge, or generative design tools like NodeBox and Processing). Seeing other kinds of vector drawing options might open space for one to make new things. If you believe that as an educator part of your role is to build on the knowledge of the past to create new knowledge you must adopt F/LOS.
The Special Topics in Graphic Design: Open Source class meandered along over the the term — but always in the direction of becoming more open; more libre. Despite not always being able to be fully libre (Richard Stallman would not have approved all our methods or tools), we did come out at the end of the term with new points of view on what makes a graphic design practice “good.” To the students “goodness” in a design practice now includes being open to sharing one’s work (failures and successes; code, files, etc.). Goodness also means building on works when and where you can (and letting others build and re-use your works). By increasing the variety of tools and techniques at one’s disposal (by utilizing open source tools, even in addition to proprietary ones — students didn’t think we needed to fully abandon our old tools and operating systems to be “libre designers” — one massively increases possibilities for formal output) a design practice can be more good. And, goodness also means operating ethically — attempting to make your designs ethical in the context of the golden rule (do unto others…), or in egalitarian access, or in not enslaving or entrapping an audience to the will of a client or a designer.
So, the next time you go looking fonts, icons, templates, stock illustrations, or frameworks for a design project look for free/libre open source ones. F/LOS offers up not only a pragmatic approach reviving how we have historically created socio-cultural artifacts, but also a critical approach that through utilizing ideologically based software and tools intentionally positions itself in opposition to mainstream modern-techno-capitalism.
The end-form of the content should dictate the style — visual style should not be baked into the content itself. The content should remain structured, yet style-less (WYSIWYM over WYSIWYG [What-you-see-is-what-you-mean instead of what-you-see-is-what-you-get]). Structure must be semantically implied with simple meta data added to content. This structured, un-styled, meta data rich content can then be fed to whatever service, tool, program, etc. required for the display type desired.
We are not yet in this perfect world.
The common tools we use are ill-suited for un-styled content creation. Word processors wrap text in formatting hard to remove for use in other contexts. Desktop publishing platforms lock content into layout files incompatible with other workflows. WYSIWYG tools bloat content with impure markup making content there hard to Reuse or migrate. This impure content withers and dies, chained into a file format, storage method, or self-imposed style prison.
This does not have to be the case.
Purer content is achievable. Pure Content is able to evolve and live in different templates, different places, and migrate seamlessly between different future-friendly formats. There are a variety of ways that content can better conform to an idealized “pure” form that is more flexible and more future friendly than current options …
On designobserver and the walker art center blog...
TEK
A cumulative body of multigenerational knowledge, practices, and beliefs.
acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku
Hello, welcome to the libre design live stream.
I am working on a couple of things:
So, do I just work on this a couple hours a week, and turn on the camera and go live? is that crazy?
Does this stick to libre designing? do we get into climate designing or anything else?
learning in the open, designing in the open.
- a classification according to general type, especially in archaeology, psychology, or the social sciences:
- the study and interpretation of types and symbols, originally especially in the Bible.
- Oxford Dictionaries / https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?hspart=hidden&hsimp=yhs-epic&p=define:%20typology
One of the most popular distros of GNU/Linux
It's a Fork of Debian (maybe? – see To Fork or Not To Fork: Lessons From Ubuntu and Debian)
I've tried it, its one of the easiest to install on any machine. But its slow and heavy and laggy and isn't an improvement over the annoyances I have with Mac and Windows in the first place.
Understanding Sustainability: Actions (The Triple Bottom Line)

Understanding Sustainability: Philosophy (Everything Is Connected)
Building the future we want requires an understanding of our collective past. Explore the last 50 years of stunning change—from food demand, water, population, ocean health, and beyond—to see our current climate inflection point in context. This introductory video is a fascinating must-watch before continuing your Climate Solutions 101 journey.
To achieve drawdown—the point when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start declining—it’s important to understand the sources of emissions and nature’s means of rebalancing the climate system. In this unit: Explore the sources and impacts of greenhouse gases, and zero-in on three critical principles: reducing sources, supporting nature’s “sinks” for storing carbon, and centering equality in global action.
With Jonathan Foley
How can we stop harmful emissions in their tracks? Discover fascinating, up-to-date methods for halting emissions before they reach the atmosphere. This unit walks through the five largest sources of greenhouse gases—electricity, food, industry, transportation, and buildings—bringing the path to a safer, low-carbon economy into sharper relief. Learn which sources make up the biggest slices of the global emissions pie.
With Jonathan Foley
Free photo site.
How is this a useful design contraint? Can we always use less? when is more okay? how does one actually usefully measure this?
Typology: <<< # a classification according to general type, especially in archaeology, psychology, or the social sciences: # the study and interpretation of types and symbols, originally especially in the Bible. <<< - Oxford Dictionaries / https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?hspart=hidden&hsimp=yhs-epic&p=define:%20typology
In this project you will examine everyday objects and experiences. Visual research and intuitive making will lead to formal experiment, meaning making, and poster design. To start, please go through Project Drawdown's Solutions and find something that interests you.
You will conduct research on-line that will help inform this project. You may free-associate and/or stray from your original subject as you see fit. The goal is to reconsider our relationship to a thing or experience that once seemed familiar, and explore its application to design and culture at large.
An experimental, expressive graphic exploration that responds to the source material: Drawdown.org
Two posters that create a dialogue about your topic and that challenge your audience to think critically.
What all of this means of course is up to you: the size, grid, etc. should all make sense based on your approach... how can you "make meaning" through selecting these design elements – not just through your text/image choices?
Collect ideas and references from the reading; Collect visuals from recommended sources; Collect other information as needed.
Deliverables: slideshow with bibliography of sources
An experimental, expressive graphic exploration that responds to and expands on your selected
This project will research and examine a topic related to climate change through the exploration of public domain visual resources.
An experimental, expressive graphic exploration that responds to the source material: Drawdown.org
Two posters that create a dialogue about your topic and that challenge your audience to think critically.
What all of this means of course is up to you: the size, grid, etc. should all make sense based on your approach... how can you "make meaning" through selecting these design elements – not just through your text/image choices?
Collect ideas and references from the reading; Collect visuals from recommended sources; Collect other information as needed.
Deliverables: slideshow with bibliography of sources
An experimental, expressive graphic exploration that responds to and expands on your selected
reference/the past: 020210311131133 Entry & Utah Workshop 202103111331
This 1978 speech by Murray Bookchin is strikingly relevant today
On August 24, 1978, Murray Bookchin gave a lecture at the Toward Tomorrow Fair in Amherst, Massachusetts. Also speaking at that year’s gathering were several prominent thinkers, including R. Buckminster Fuller and Ralph Nader. In his speech, Bookchin argues against the ideology of futurism and for ecological utopianism. In the Q&A session, he points out that he is not against technology itself, he is against technocracy, and he also describes, in detail, his political vision for the future.
The speech is surprisingly relevant in today’s context: it’s as if he predicted the rise of fascist ideology and lifeboat ethics in the 21st century, and it feels like a direct rebuttal of Elon Musk-esque technocratic futurism on both the right and the left.
Because his speech is so applicable today, we decided to republish it here, making it accessible to a wider audience. It has been transcribed and edited lightly for flow, brevity, and grammar, and we have divided it into sub-sections for ease of reading. The text is published with the permission of The Bookchin Trust.
http://unevenearth.org/2019/10/bookchin_doing_the_impossible/
And it can be listened to here: https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums741-b237-i005
I am a Graphic Designer, was working as such before coming to school, and thus have been approaching the concept of Sustainability through the lens of design. This lead to the question I posed myself which deals with both sustainability and design, What does sustainable graphic design look like…
I even began my thesis work this way… here I was trying to visualize the message "what does sustainable graphic design look like?" by using a vocabulary of "green" iconography. This was a fairly literal approach, and I ended up abandoning it because my interest was quickly lost, and I did not see this progressing the subject in any real way…
While becoming frustrated with my initial directions, I continued to read and research the topic. As I would uncover new information, find morsels of data or facts I found particularly interesting, I started collecting a visual diary… Each little thing of interest I would try to visualize in some way, be it a phrase, a fact, whatever. This has resulted in a number of pages of graphics, some text driven, some image driven, all sharing the theme of sustainability.
This is a random sampling of what I have thus far… these are all just sayings or data that I came up with or came across that I couldn't go on without sharing—perhaps after further revisions and additions this may all become some sort of zine or web publication…
These don't necessarily move the cause forward as much as I would hope either, but they are definitely down a slightly different path that the first studies shown. And as I have moved towards a more theoretical philosophy of sustainability, these studies have become fewer and farther between, replaced instead by writing.
In order to realize designs with a growing set of ideas, concepts and beliefs, I was in search of a new method. I found this in the "systems-based-design" approach. The idea being that once the data set is selected, a system of rules for its display is created, and then the design is influenced by the data, and vice versa—a synergy between the design and the information is created…
This is something we have been talking a lot about this year, and have had several visiting guests speak towards both last spring and this fall.
The more I have researched this the more I realize my visual work has to be about envisioning the information I am uncovering…Finding "systems" to help do this is good next step for me, it melds well with my thinking processes, and besides, sustainability is inherently about systems…
Each of these examples does a decent job of taking a data set, either textual entries, portfolio pieces, bands in an itunes playlist, or frequent words in a book, and displays or maps them in some systematic way…
The first visual study in my thesis work I did as part of this new approach started with this logo… The We logo was fairly new, and seemed like a step forward in the sustainable-design-arena. At about the same time Wal-Mart had a new branding campaign also with a semi-neuvo-environmental slant. With these as a starting point I continued thinking about the greenwashing of other brands across all sectors, and then thinking about existing brands that have always had an environmental or sustainable message, and how the field was becoming muddled and jumbled and filled with mixed and meaningless messages…
I ended up taking about one-hundred brand's logos. Logos were chosen at semi-random, I had some in mind already, like wholefoods, wal-mart, BP and the We campaign, while others were found by googling "sustainable companies" or things like that.
The final color was achieved by sampling all their brand colors, and then averaging them all together into a new master color… which I like to call, the greenest green.
It actually works pretty nicely this way, but it was intended to exist as a broadside, which is one of my sample pieces on the wall.
This is where I have gotten too graphically thus far, and from this point onward things will be more or less about the concepts and philosophies I am working on.
Underlying concepts: green and sustainable might not be the best words to describe sustainable design
My Initial thoughts about how Green and Sustainable are used as adjectives like any others has actually already changed since I began this process. I have now come to the decision that Sustainability has a heft and reality to it that Green does not. Sustainability is broad, and thus capably used in a variety of situations, while Green is a remnant of the aging environmental cause. With this in mind it becomes very important to try and define what sustainability then really means…
In my attempts to explain to myself what sustainability means, I started with common dictionary definitions. These definitions are broad and simple, and provide a non-specific idea of what the word means. They do not really provide substance—But I am concerned with the substance of sustainability, and how to apply that substance to graphic design. With the addition of some extra reading [Cradle to Cradle, the Death of Environmentalism, In The Bubble, the Viridian Design Manifesto, and more] I started to get my personal definition of sustainability down, and my version of a sustainable philosophy straight.
An underlying theme I have found in nearly every text and work I have read is this idea of a trinity mentality towards dealing with sustainability. Different people use different terms, but true sustainability always comes down to answering Economic, Societal and Environmental needs together.
As a Venn diagram, sweet spots begin to appear where sustainability in one realm overlaps sustainability in another… Each of these areas can be described as being sustainable in its own way, but only when each takes the other two into consideration will "true sustainability" be met. I see this diagram as "sustainability in action"
This lead to this next diagram, which is more the philosophy of sustainability rather than a working model… This describes the Mindset that gets you to the center sweet spot on the last diagram…
It results from the concept that our economy is a construct of society, and thus would not exist out side of it. likewise, we as humans, and thus out society, would not exist without the greater concept of nature, and thus are contained within it… This creates a holistic view to move forward with, once this concept is grasped, one sees that any decision made in one realm will effect the other two as well, so act accordingly!
With these philosophies in mind, I plan on using them to influence my next round of visuals and further thinking. We are in a post-environmental world, and need to expand our thinking outside of any one realm into the others… These are the stepping stones towards my next set of "things."
MAKING SUSTAINABLE CHOICES
With my personal theories and philosophies coming together, I have been spending more time attempting to answer my initial question "what does sustainable graphic design look like?"
Another goal is to construct some sort of framework, at least for myself, that then allows for sustainable graphic design to happen all of the time—something applicable to my personal practice that could also be applied as an example by others…
To do this I have been looking at several examples that set up some kind of framework…
There are checklist models like LEED for buildings and the Sustainable design checklist, where you simply go down the list and try to comply with as many things as possible… These are a less favored model for me, but valid to at least examine (the sustainable design checklist, it is almost all sacrifice driven, i hate this!)
The model for Consumer Chart takes you through the questions one might ask in a shopping process, and based on yes or no answers whether or not you would decide to purchase something… a model like this might be interesting to expand upon in sustainable terms—a map of sustainable choices.
One last model of choice making I have found interesting is the "Oblique Strategies" deck by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, originally created to help them out of stalls in their respective music and painting studios. I can envision some sort of sustainable strategies deck, pull a card and do whatever it says to make your design "sustainable"—a random clearing house of ideas…
Lastly, I have been working on some different conceptual answers to my thesis question in hopes of finding an answer by just thinking about it. I am working on examples in each of the categories that idealize each area and show that there is not one specific answer, but a potential myriad of good answers… Running through quickly, Sustainable design could look eco-friendly, it can just keep on looking the same as any other design, it can be "progressive" or innovative in its look, or, it can not exist… this last one is especially important for me, because I think an increasingly important question everyone should be asking themselves when approaching any project is "does this need to exist?"
END: so what does sustainable graphic design look like? I'm still not completely sure, but working on it…
The common language of a place.
This can be a style, a material, an inflection, a way of looking at things. It is not limited merely to architecture or language, it can be connected to culture, signs, anything.

What we need is Very fast ramping flexible peaking power generation. And this will need to come from all kinds of new sources. Small, distributed sources.
WAGE: Working Artists and the Greater Economy
A note to the visitor: W.A.G.E. is a small artist-run organization with limited resources but we're committed to providing a high performing, user-friendly platform that offers a positive online experience! So, we’re debugging, refactoring and rebuilding our website from the ground up to correct for digital obsolescence and mobile unfriendliness, and to bring it into ADA compliance. In the meantime, we continue to operate two connected programs, W.A.G.E. Certification for institutions and WAGENCY for artists, and will soon add a third for art workers—interactive contracts for the non-unionized freelance workers who facilitate the production, exhibition, and circulation of art. (Re)launching April 2023.
Waiting
Waiting
It is morning. I am waiting.
Why am I no good at waiting.
I want to sit, like a rock just sits,
wait, just like a tree just waits.
But I can't.
Waiting.
Pacing.
Thinking.
Staring.
Stop pacing. Just waiting.
Do less in more time.
Waiting.
Earth systems are cyclical, the waste of one process feeds the next.
Major background concept for all the Cradle to Cradle ideas.
Flesh this out a bit more: Waste Equals Food and in 020210607235218 Ideas
Free software can allow for more creative waste to become creative food. And, WASTE = FOOD is a sustainable ideal. So, does that make free software more sustainable?
Waste = Food; what other ways can I find that this is true for creative kinds of waste? As I mentioned before I think that in some ways F/LOSS improves upon this equation.
Is this also how vernacular patterns/building come into the picture — are free/libre open models the new vernacular (is that how I make my designing today more like the way say a Cape Cod house comes together?)
Waste = Food is a great idea to apply to more things than just the natural world. Here's a great prompt: the earth's major nutrients are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, & nitrogen ... what are graphic design's major nutrients? (and! how can they be cycled and recycled into new graphic design indefinitely?)
(transition from waste = food to speculative design and challenging the status quo?)
Dunne and Raby propose that design should explore activities and outcomes that question and challenge status quo industrial agendas—however! for the most part the designers doing this are still using status quo tools! Sustainability (at least the flourishing variety I am interested in) is NOT the current status quo; so if I am challenging the assumptions of contemporary design and capitalist consumerism, then I need non-capitalist consumerist tools to do that with—enter F/LOSS.
Sustainable Graphic Design is a mindset, not a checklist of "the right" materials
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Referenced in 020210607235218 Ideas
We are perpetually dissatisfied with what we have, and we are constantly idealizing everything we don't have.
Rethink waste in our systems; disseminate this research from the studio
The outcome is frequently different than what we would like. And sometimes the opposite of what you would like. You invest in the outcome and you are guaranteed to have more than your share of frustration.
related to Have-Do-Be
We live in a universe that is always changing, full of matter that is always moving.
from Theoretical Physicist Lee Smolin
Related to Entropy?
We need utopian thinking, without it we are constrained by the tyranny of the possible.
from Utopia is No Place
We must radically reduce carbon emissions by 2030 in order to avoid the most catastrophic damage of climate change. How can you help?
Sustainabilitist “wealth” encompasses all areas of resources (knowledge, information, water, food, etc), not just the monetary. The sustainabilitist world revolves around the fair distribution and dissemination of these values.
How else can we do this?
What kinds of rituals should sustainability have? how can we use rituals to remind people to value the welfare of all life — create the kind of society in which to live that actually benefits us and allows for humans and all other life to flourish
What comes to mind when you read the phrase “sustainable graphic design?” Is there a particular aesthetic? Is there a particular kind of client? Is there a particular visual trope or particular look or feel? How about a particular message? Do you just picture “the triple bottom line?” Is it environmentally friendly? recycled paper? What?
how do I answer this question?
A prompt.
What does it look like? Should it matter that it looks different or the same?
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This question continues to fascinate me. Alongside the Sustainabilitist principles, I had works that I felt fell into 4 types of "answers":
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Related:
The thinking, the work, the energy, the ideas, the whatever... however you are at the place you are in time and space and success in the present, if you want to change and grow, it will probably take new thinking, new energy, new work.
In The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton writes: “To call a work of architecture or design beautiful is to recognize it as a rendition of values critical to our flourishing. A transubstantiation of our individual ideals in a material medium.” This would then seem that however our ideals are materialized into graphic design yields “beautiful” graphic design. Botton specifically mentions "values critical to our flourishing." If we merge Botton's idea with our "all life flourishing" focused graphic design then sustainable design IS beautiful design. This doesn't imply a style or aesthetic, but instead a shared set of values. We get other criteria to help judge the goodness of a design, not purely formal, but the content, the context.
Sustainable designers must see the non-sustainable as the less than beautiful. If your design doesn't account for the welfare of all life, whatever the external aesthetics that wrap it, your design is ugly. Edwin Datschefksi calls this “the hidden ugliness of traditional products.” Basically, the non-sustainable is (& can only be) ugly.
So: A design is both sustainable AND beautiful when its form declares that humans and all other life should flourish.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
— Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, Molly Bawn, 1878
How can both "Sustainable Design = Beautiful Design" AND "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" be true?
“There are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness”
— Stendhal
It's not a new idea that beauty isn't the same for everyone
"Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them."
— David Hume, _Essays, Moral and Political_, 1742
How Does a sustainabilitist account for pluralities as to what constitutes “beautiful?” How do we begin to share "all life flourishing" as an overarching socio-cultural value?
But! If you design for the welfare of all life, it doesn't matter what the design looks like, the design will be beautiful!?
The way the web works will be increasingly about linking together disparate but specialized services; not providing a single website with all solutions pre-built or hardwired into the site itself. CAPE accepts and tries to embrace this new ecosystem.
_CAPE has two basic parts._
The first part is to API content feeds as Google is to HTML pages: Users search across multiple content sources and are empowered to reuse or display found data in any way they choose. A user defines various content sources, creates a set of search filters, previews the results and saves the final query. Queries are live-updated content feeds, and the results can be removed, remixed, or saved. Saved results can also be re-ordered. Source feeds are not limited and can include public RSS and API data as well as private content created in a Dropbox folder or files from a Jekyll GIT repository.
The second part is CAPE’s use of the search results. Each query has a “saved” and “live” results feed. Currently query result feeds are available in XML, Json, or can be passed through mustache templates for a variety of use-cases.
A blogger or editor can search for tags across multiple sources (including personal ones) and then select the relevant content for a new post with a few clicks. The results can be turned into the actual HTML file or displayed in widget format on any page. Entire websites can be created this way based on a collection of saved queries and a set of display templates.
CAPE uses existing and standard formatting, hardware, software, and server technologies. However, the way in which these things are combined is fairly novel.
_This is software, service, and philosophy in one._
As software, CAPE provides the potential for a backend to control all your content feeds — photos from Flickr or Instagram, text docs from Dropbox or Github, spreadsheets from Google Drive, even content from your inventory management system, basically anything that has an API, RSS feed, or otherwise publishes to the web (cloud) somehow can be found, captured, and reused.
Service-wise CAPE provides the option for linking together all your other services. Pick the existing products, softwares, services, etc. that already manage something — workflow tools, photo feeds, etc. — and then use what you are already familiar with to create the content for your website or even print. Instead of being a content management system, CAPE is a content curation and delivery service. (To clarify what “services” are: CMSs have modules or plugins, iOS and Android have apps, the Web has Services … (For more on this, [“There is a service for that”](https://github.com/sundaysenergy/www.sundaysenergy.com/blob/master/pages/static/service_for_that.md) contains references to many existing services providing all kinds of pre-built functionality.))
As a philosophy, CAPE says this: whatever you are already using for content management or creation, please continue to use it. CAPE just wants that content, and will find it, re-format it and deliver it where and how you choose. Mostly this requires thinking about what existing services do the tasks you require, what current jobs create and manage content within your office, and then how those can all be linked together in a sensical, methodical way.
CAPE is beneficial for a number of reasons.
That CAPE is a philosophy as much of a software/hardware decision means that it is mutable, iterable, flexible, and more future-proof than many other options. CAPE allows for working fluidly within existing company/organization workflows.
Content creation tasks can be broken up by who actually deals with specific kinds of content. These sub-divided creation tasks can be relegated to tools best and/or only suited to the specific tasks. This makes a creator/editor’s tasks simpler as new workflows, tools, concepts, etc. aren’t necessary. This also means that products and/or services best used for a specific medium can be used making each piece of a site — images, text, HTML, video, CSS, JS, whatever — hosted, served, managed, etc. in the most effective possible way.
Breaking down conceptually the way that the content is created, and then putting it back together at your discretion allows for a number of things traditional CMS driven sites don't easily permit.
Sites built on the CAPE philosophy are simpler, smaller, leaner, and faster to host. The “site” itself is made up of just a few HTML, CSS, JS, and media files as the majority of the content is being drawn in from elsewhere. Also, when new “pages” or “content” are created, they are actually turned into static HTML pages that load quickly and reliably. The entire site (excluding the third party services) can be hosted on a Content Delivery Network. A CDN provides redundancy, speed, and reliability beyond that of regular hosting models for PHP/SQL driven sites.
CAPE doesn’t power a site like a traditional CMS does, it generates a site. CAPE lives in the background, listening for changes in feeds, services, or other content libraries. When it notices a change or new content CAPE creates any new pages, lists, menus, etc., corresponding to that change, update, or addition.
If you need to load a page, the page is just there for loading, the server doesn’t need to ask a SQL database (or anything else) for said content and have PHP or another script/language compile the content into an HTML file. Also, because of the CDN possibilities, the closest, least-loaded server to a visitor can be used to serve the files, creating another speed gain.
CAPE provides a way to link, display, feed, and control content from elsewhere. It does this using simple JS, HTML, CSS, and a collection of processing software snippets. Individually, these are all base-level, foundation technologies for the construction of web-pages. This is unlikely to change in the near future.
Because CAPE doesn't actually manage any content itself, only finds and displays content from elsewhere, your content can be migrated, moved, edited, etc. from whatever is the current best choice. This means that CAPE is able to evolve and flex as technologies advance, improve, or change all together. Being a philosophy more than a software allows for adaptability to be key.
_Some of these points reiterate the ones above, but are helpful to explain more specific benefits, or the same benefits in greater detail._
Content rarely changes. It is a complete waste of resources to load a database and software to handle the processing it into the final html markup. It's difficult to get higher performance than serving static files. Dynamic content can be handled with various third party javascript libraries. Ever get a notice from your host that your website is using too many resources? CPU or Memory issues will be gone forever when your site is statically cached.
Own your content. If you use a blogging service like Tumblr you should have a backup of all your posts. Do you? CAPE accepts various sources of information and stores them in plain text files. They are easy to edit anywhere and can be published everywhere.
Serving static HTML is inherently safe. No server side scripts to get attacked, or abused. Anytime your site is being dynamically generated that software must be updated regularly or you are at risk for security vulnerabilities.
Interfaces change, content remains. It's too difficult to have layout specific information in the content if you want to display the content in more than one place. The content needs to be **presentation agnostic**. One of the greatest things about the Web is its universality. Web-enabled devices are everywhere. Your content should be accessible from any device. A Content Management System should focus on **managing content** not displaying it.
The web is responsive by nature. Responsive design gets really difficult to accomplish when there are display rules mixed into the content. As it is impossible to test for all the possibilities we must try to design, code, and content-create for the flexibility and the unknown. By treating content as its own layer, removed from the presentation, we are better able to do this.
Desktop applications, web applications, mobile applications. All devices can by sources of content. Why limit yourself to creating content in/on a single place/software focused toward a single device/context.
Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) is a principle of software development aimed at reducing repetition of information — all kinds of information. To reinvent the wheel is to duplicate a basic method that has already been created or optimized by others. CAPE helps website users and managers avoid these pitfalls.
Using Drupal, Wordpress, or most other CMSs requires software to be running on a server to dynamically build each page request. Every time a user visits a page, the server has to build that page first. Every time. Every single time. The software that does this builds each page dynamically, and requires constant updates and has a lot of “moving parts.” The cost to keep all of those parts moving all the time is high. Therefore, the correlating cost to properly host a website like this is much more expensive than that of hosting static site.
With a typical CMS, content can only be created via that website. The method for adding content was designed to be like a “desktop” type device that was connected to the internet. This approach was fine when everyone did everything on a desktop computer. But now content creators have all kinds of devices they like to use for content creation. A good example is the iPad. It’s clumsy editing content via a website, and it's a much nicer experience using a native app that is a content editor.
WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editors are still the common means of editing content in most CMSs. Unfortunately, while they appear useful, they are mostly inefficient and ineffective. WYSIWYG editors created bloated content that contains not just the actual content, but a variety of presentational markup. This both makes the site slower to load and harder to reuse content in other places. It also can interfere with main styles and templates created for display. WYSIWYG works fine on your personal blog, but it isn’t optimal for dynamic, flexible, and responsive websites.
CAPE is more interested in WYSIWYM, or “What You See Is What You Mean.”
From wikipedia:
In a WYSIWYM editor, the user writes the contents in a structured way, marking the content according to its meaning, its significance in the document, leaving its final appearance up to one or more separately WYSIWYG-authored style sheets. For example, in a WYSIWYM document a human being manually marks text as the title of the document, the name of a section, or the name of an author; this would in turn allow one element, such as section headings, to be rendered as large bold text in one style sheet, or as red center justified text in another, without further human intervention. This requires the semantic structure of the document to be decided on before writing it.[‡](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYM)
This allows for CAPE sites to have textual, image, video, and whatever other content separated from each other allowing a much easier chance for reuse, repurposing, and optimized management dependent on the content or media type. The content then only displays in the ways you have asked or told it to.
You’ll only be as good as the mean of those around you. The Drupal community is home to many semi-developer freelancers. Drupal enables a ton of functionality without being a programmer. Need some added functionality? There is more than likely a module for that. A module that could have been written for a specific job and the maintainer is no longer getting paid to work on it. Wordpress has a similar community and thus a similar set of problems. CAPE avoids this by interfacing with standard, up-kept tools. If a new, better tool comes along (or better maintained tool), it can be swapped in for the old one.
This post describes capitalism as: an activity, the capitalist system, the phases of capitalism through history and that there are many capitalisms. If we want to get rid of capitalism, first we need to understand what it is.
When we say Research in a design context, what is it that we really mean!?
This lecture is called "What is sustainable graphic design?" I'm attempting to curate a space where visual designing and sustainability overlap meaningfully. I'll walk us through some theories and a few case-studies dealing with "what Sustainable Aesthetics might look like."
In my twenty year role as graphic designer I've designed books, album covers, magazines, logos, websites, and built digital tools. Regardless of final forms, if its client-based or self-initiated, I treat all my designs as opportunities for intellectual inquiry and self-expression.
_The Sustainabilitist Principles_ is a modular manifesto; a collection of the ways of thinking to sustainably design as I considered them in 2009. The goal: create an object whose form embodied the principles it conveyed.
_The Sustainabilitist Principles_ started out as the books on my desk, I was wondering where "sustainable designing" lay within them… mapping connections between ideas… writing about repeating principles… the interconnections over time and space of similar ideals… how to clarify access to the ideas for the next designer.
The final output of this direction brought necessary pieces together in an intentional, ephemeral form for an exhibition. I did not need to make another book or a poster series to explain these principles: the objects themselves could do it if I put them together correctly! The books were my actual books. The screen printed definitions, they were printed on the front matter of found paperback novels. The interconnecting embroidery floss was used in the longest possible pieces to maximize reuse of the thread afterward.
This was what I felt was my first successful piece of "sustainable graphic design." It was also my final "answer" to a question in grad school: "What does Sustainable Graphic Design look like?"
This question continues to fascinate me. Alongside the Sustainabilitist principles, I had works that I felt fell into 3 types "answers" — and then a 4th wild card...
- Sustainable Graphic Design Looks The Same - Good design is good design. If you pick the right materials or processes sustainable design doesn't need to look or be any different. - Sustainable Graphic Design Looks Eco-Friendly - Clearly wearing one's environmental and social activism on one's sleeve. Renewable energy, plant motifs, brown paper, natural dyes, etc. - Sustainable Graphic Design Looks Innovative - Sustainability brings with it new ways of thinking, new tools, new technology; and so visuals should be new and innovative too… - AND, Sustainable Graphic Design Does Not Exist!
"Sustainable design does not exist" was at first pessimistic. Is design all just trash? does design create waste period, so nothing is sustainable? Anything we make is unmaking so much else; so all design is unsustainable.
But! "Sustainable design does not exist" came to signify an alternative; it didn't exist because it was ephemeral! because it reused existing objects in a new way! that it left no trace! that it was part of some continuous vernacular process! suddenly this was a prompt for new works; new questions; new directions! A useful constraint for future work.
When I talk about sustainability, I'm talking about these mindsets.
- The triple bottom line - separate but additive; each space has potential for sustainability, but you can focus on one without the others. - Nested: Economy within Society within Nature - holistic; what buckminster fuller was talking about when he said we live on "spaceship earth" - If you frame everything this way, you can't accidentally leave out a kind of sustainability.
In the 2013 book Flourishing: A Frank Conversation about Sustainability, John Ehrenfeld writes “The key to doing something about sustainability is that you first have to say what it is that you want to sustain.” To define sustainable graphic design we must first define what it is we are sustaining.
To define sustainable graphic design we must first define what it is we are sustaining.
Sustainable graphic design is design in service of what we want to sustain — how do you decide what's worth sustaining? (because, if we pick the wrong thing, say we want to sustain the status quo, then that is what sustainable graphic design is — hmmm!?).
Ehrenfeld wants to sustain “that all humans and other life should flourish.”
Designer Bruce Mau has a similar description for the goals of _Massive Change_: “Our project is the welfare of _all life_ as a practical objective.”
This is what we'll use as our definition of Sustainable Graphic Design for the remainder of the talk: Sustainable graphic design is “graphic design in support of all life flourishing,” or, “graphic design for the welfare of all life.”
Sustainable Graphic Design defined this way is _different_ than "regular," cultural production. All life flourishing is not the traditional goal of business, culture, and design.
Throughout western art and design history new or “different” thinking and tools correlate with new aesthetic outcomes.
Sustainability brings with it all manner of new technologies, new social structures, new tools. Should Sustainable graphic design then carry with it additional new forms and aesthetics?
Should a font’s appearance matter as much as the energy and material and social ills it saves? Is selecting a font that uses minimal ink the best way to select a font? Would a font that is condensed, that uses up less space (saving paper over a print run; exposure to chemicals to the printer) be better? Can we combine the these? The thinest, most condensed, lightest ink coverage font is the most sustainable? This can easily be taken absurd lengths. This might be "Critical Design," critiquing the status quo; it tackles resultant outcomes from a resource perspective; but does it embrace “the welfare of all life?” Making choices around resource use might make “less bad” graphic design, does it make for _sustainable_ graphic design? (Experimental letterforms made using 000letter <http://kielm.land/>).
“all design is ideological, the design process is informed by values based on a specific world view.”— Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, _Design Noir: The Secret Life of Objects_
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby write in their 2001 book Design Noir: The Secret Life of Objects that “all design is ideological, the design process is informed by values based on a specific world view.” If our world view is “the welfare of all life,” how does that shift what and how we graphic design?
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby are proponents of “critical design,” design that “provides a critique of the prevailing situation through designs that embody alternative social, cultural, technical, or economic values.”
Sustainable graphic design is not just design that helps people and our planet, but design that is also critical of existing social, cultural, technical, AND economic structures; since many of these things are harming all life, not helping them to flourish.
We judge graphic design on whether or not it is formally “good.” But, we use visual criteria for "formal goodness" or "beauty" are part of the systems we must be critical of.
Contemporary formal goodness evolved from late 19th through mid-20th centuries western art traditions.
Mid-century modernism is so embedded in culture that the "rules" of graphic designing are just the "rules" of modernism.— Jerome Harris
The formal concepts from Modernist Capitalism do not lead to all life flourishing (it's usually the opposite!).
We need new criteria for what formal goodness or "beauty" now are for Sustainable visual output!
_Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses, and Abandoned Lots_ was a book I worked on with my friend and curator Sue Spaid, for the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, OH. Green Acres featured artists using farming as their art practice.
The goal: make the resultant book "sustainable." These were sustainability focused artists, how could I represent their ecological inventiveness in a printed book? The things that made the production of this book "sustainable" were that it was printed on demand, and used recycled, unbleached paper.
Visually, the book's design was meant to be _critical design_; the juxtaposition of small art farm graphics vs. giant commercial farm references via a constrained square grid and the aerial commercial farmland photography.
While the book intends to say something different, it conforms to common standards of "good" modernist layout. Other than a minor production method improvement, it's the same … ! Is it Sustainable Graphic Design?
In The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton writes: “To call a work of architecture or design beautiful is to recognize it as a rendition of values critical to our flourishing. A transubstantiation of our individual ideals in a material medium.” This would then seem that However our ideals are materialized into graphic design yields “beautiful” graphic design.
This then implies that Sustainable designers must see the non-sustainable as the less than beautiful. Edwin Datschefksi calls this “the hidden ugliness of traditional products.”‡8 Basically, the non-sustainable is (& can only be) ugly.
Beauty will align with your values. A design is both sustainable AND beautiful when its form declares that humans and all other life should flourish. Is there a style, aesthetic, or form says this?
“To call a work of architecture or design beautiful is to recognize it as a rendition of values critical to our flourishing. A transubstantiation of our individual ideals in material medium.“— Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness
Alain de Botton thinks that Beauty's perception aligns with one's values. However our ideals are materialized into graphic design yields “beautiful” graphic design.
Sustainable design’s form declares “humans & all life should flourish.” / If those are the values we want to align with, then beautiful design’s form declares “humans & all life should flourish.
A design is both sustainable AND beautiful when its form declares that humans and all other life should flourish.
Sustainable Design = Beautiful Design
If your design doesn't account for the welfare of all life, whatever the external aesthetics that wrap it, your design is ugly. Edwin Datschefksi calls this “the hidden ugliness of traditional products.” — You are missing a component of holistic "beauty."
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder— Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, Molly Bawn, 1878
How can both "Sustainable Design = Beautiful Design" AND "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" be true?
How Does a sustainabilitist account for pluralities as to what constitutes “beautiful?”
“there are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness”— Stendhal
It's not a new idea that beauty isn't the same for everyone
"Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them."— David Hume's Essays, Moral and Political, 1742
Beauty = intrinsic value. What's valuable to you!?
Beauty = Value
Value = Good Ethics
Good Ethics = All Life Flourishing
What is a good ethical thing that you value? if we achieve that, it doesn't matter what it looks like, it will be beautiful!
When your graphic design Makes tangible, makes understandable something about sustainability or climate change, then it is signaling sustainably.
This is doable no matter the project; no matter the prompt. There are myriad aspects of climate change and sustainability one might signal. Each in their tiny part we can think of as contributing to "all life flourishing."
This is another opportunity to find the "context" for which "beauty" becomes apparent in a design without resorting to superficial, external styling.
Here are some Signs Signaling Sustainability
A concept that was never made; but that sent me down this direction: Copenhagen waste to energy plant is so clean its exhaust stack puffs only CO2 and water vapor. Upon capturing 1 ton of CO2, exhausts it as a smoke ring. Help you visualize this otherwise intangible!? (Bjarke Ingels Group)
_Reverberation Crosswalks_ are fun, brightly colored crosswalks. Just paint on cement and asphalt they still signal a sustainable vector forward. The neighborhood around this intersection is now more walkable. You can't not notice the crosswalks. They contribute to life flourishing in the city. This concept is cheap; fast; easily replicated; can be customized for region, culture, available materials, etc. (Graham Coreil Allen)
Low Tech Magazine's solar powered website signals how we might visualize energy usage; how we might enable new systems of powering our tools; questions if we really need constant connection; and how aesthetic choices correlate to physical resources even in the digital sphere. (Kris De Decker & Marie Otsuka)
The DC water mark project visualizes increased flooding and water level rise. The water level rings articulate "oh shit, this place might be underwater pretty frequently given our current projected future!" By signaling this, perhaps we can act accordingly and redirect our present towards a future where that is no longer true. Without _seeing_ your house or office or favorite park area submerged, even symbolically, you cannot envision an alternative. (Curry J. Hackett / Wayside Studio)
Enrolled in various courses and acquired certification for sustainable/green knowledge. To flaunt new found titles, created merit patches to be worn on gray coveralls during events and gardening sessions. <http://tattfoo.com/sos/SOSGreenStewardship.html>
Prairie grass and agricultural waste for new paper fiber sources! These papers end up being very low carbon, or even carbon negative, in their footprints. (Eric Benson)
Foam pool noodle rubber banded to a bike rack... That's real utilitarian graphic design. <https://www.are.na/block/4299163>
The cradle to cradle books are signs signaling sustainability. C2C is a "technical" nutrient – the entire book is made to be taken back into a production process – the pages are plastic, the ink reclaimable. The Upcycle is instead a biological nutrient, made to decompose and return to the cycles of nature. Paper, ink, binding, is all made to biodegrade…
What does sustainable graphic design look like? it doesn't matter.
I used to be hung up on the visual aesthetics. I wanted sustainable things to LOOK DIFFERENT to have their own aesthetic… but what I've learned is that that doesn't matter. The way things look
I'll leave you with two more example from my own work. These are ways to make the pieces more sustainable based on my values …
All of the image and typographic resources are open source or public domain. The printing structure was designed to minimize printing waste – the front and back of this "poster" are printed all as one plate, so the press sheet goes through the press once, then is flipped over, and goes through the press again, voila. This means front and back of the pages were able to all be printed with one plate per color instead of two or more… All of these ideas together, do they add up to a beautiful design? a sustainable design?
Fast forward from Green Acres. Sue Spaid, now living in Belgium, has a new exhibition opportunity: _Ecovention Europe_, ecologically inventive artists working in Europe, and there is another book.
In the interim since _Green Acres_, I heard Sara de Bondt discuss the _Radical Nature_ catalog designed for the Barbican in London. De Bondt's studio wrote a sustainable printing manifesto as part of the research for the catalog's production.
De Bondt's "manifesto" got me thinking about what other ways design decisions could be made: How might I re-examine the design choices of _Green Acres_ For _Ecovention Europe_? Could I improve the sustainability (and the sustainable aesthetics)?
One of the items in De Bondt's printing manifesto is "use less ink." This meant selecting colors more carefully.
No color adds up to more that 100% ink coverage. (_Ecovention Europe_ uses CMYK: and color palette swatches start at 100% pure C, M, Y, or K, and then are mixed in equal percentages to keep 100% or less total coverage: 50% + 50%; 33% + 33% + 33%; etc.). This resulted in a color palette that was fairly special for this book. Is that a form of sustainable beauty? critical design?
Reducing ink led to bitmapped city maps as the decorative section markers. The appearance of a filled area is kept (relating back to a _Green Acres_ design choice), but less ink is used comparatively.
Text columns in _Green Acres_ ended at full paragraphs breaks to make editing easier. This gave a formally-nice rhythm to text columns, but it was an inefficient use of space. With _Ecovention Europe_, I reduced this space by running all the text the full column heights. This had the secondary benefit of minimizing superfluous decoration: In _Green Acres_, superficial decorative elements filled those blanks left by text columns ending mid-page.
I even tried to reduce decision making through reuse. The grid for _Green Acres_ had a lot of conceptual reasoning invested into it, and so I reused the page templates, type choices, grid setup, etc.
As a conceptual exercise, this was great. But, did it make much of a difference? How could this be done differently and improved upon again next time? Is there an alternative to making this book at all? (Should this exist? I didn’t ask that question before we began!)
of course your questions, but here's a google doc, what are your values???
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Design critic Bruce Sterling outlines three criteria for objects worth making, owning, and keeping:
- Beautiful Things - Sentimental Things - Utilitarian Things
“There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named. It is never twice the same, because it always takes its shape from the particular place in which it occurs.”— Christopher Alexander
The qualities that promote the welfare of all life are, like the quality without a name, ineffable. And like the quality without a name, aesthetics that correspond with all life flourishing will shift and change with different contexts.
Is it Problem Solving or Problem Finding?
Is it Question Answering or Question Creating? > see Questioning = Creating
A question to ask myself whenever I make any action?
How does one answer this?
IS the goal to answer this question? or is it to debate the outcomes, or is it just that there are Future Possibles to be directed towards?
Marshall McLuhan's tetrads:
Eric McLuhan mentions that the tetrads aren't hierarchical, they are merely 4 things to think about in terms of any medium, media, technology. But, in documenting them as a list you suffer from Accidental Hierarchy.
How to decide what is beautiful?
The work was meant to just be “good graphic design” — that it should look like other design, yet be more “good” in that it also embraced various aspects of sustainability.
Again and again in green and sustainable design projects, the work wears its heart too much on its sleeve: it looks too eco-friendly and unrefined.
/ work that avoided looking specifically reused, energy-efficient, or “green.”
Stop thinking about what technology does. Start thinking about who technology does it to and who technology does it for!?
Should images be their own tiddlers that are then transcluded? are images additional fields? Is there a difference between when an image is meta-data versus when the image IS the data?
For instance:
???
Should I just pitch them the "what is sustainable graphic design" series? its the same, its about materials, its about messages, its about different signifiers, its about the clients, whatever it might be, each of these is a different short "essay"?
How about a series on What Sustainable Graphic Design Looks Like?? I could start with the sort of what things are easy — Sustainable Graphic Design is the Same » like, okay, do what you do, but do all these little things that are low hanging fruit; there are already so many resources and write ups about picking printers, paper, ink, processes, etc. Oh, you work digitally, well these companies offset the carbon of their servers and systems... Then it can go up in levels, like okay, how can you rethink communication practices? Architecture and industrial design draw a lot on biomimicry, what can Graphic Design do? are there new materials or new ideas we can come up with... There are already things like Lean and/or Six Sigma that try to make factory production more efficient of time and materials, the basics of this can
Sustainable Graphic Design might LOOK eco-friendly, is that a problem? are there other things it could signal instead? Should sustainable design look innovative or avant garde in some way? What if it really just doesn't exist, this could be pessimistic, like man we're wasting our time just go be a farmer or plastic recycler or something, or hey, how can we dematerialize everything and make all design waste food for other projects!?
It is easy to find help thinking about paper and ink, and more and more thinking about offsets for digital projects... but there is still little about other ways of doing and thinking visual communication design... Maybe starting there – here's the basics that you can find in more detail already just about anywhere you'd look... but here are some other things to cconsider... and then those "other things" are their own posts?
Are there messages you should do/not do? are there visual languages you should use/not use? are there clients you should work with/not work with? Where do other ideas like "social design" fit into this? Transition from human-centered to earth-centered? life-centered? Bruce mau said we need to design for the welfare of ALL LIFE, that was already 15 years ago; which graphic designers are designing for all life? We often make ephemeral things – ads, instagram stories, websites, books for things in a certain time and space (I'm working on a booklet for a graduate school right now, we're trying to figure out how to make it more useful for longer and easier to replace only the bits and pieces that need replacing when it does have to be updated) … Are there materials you could help invent? What other ways are there to signal sustainability in any project!?
I'm terrible at this in most of my practice — I have teaching where I talk about this to my students and try to get them to do it, but my few client projects are mostly status quo ones; so I am writing this partially to force myself to fully adopt these things moving forward.
The last thing to think about is that hey, maybe being a visual designer for visual design's sake isn't really important — can you take your skills to some other kind of work or mission? Like a writer that ends up becoming a good lawyer or good labor organizer, writing well allows them to do their "work" better, but it isn't the "title" of the work — can "graphic design" let you do everything else related to tackling climate change better???
Can you align your practice and projects with one (or several) of the UN SDGs? or Project Drawdown's "Solutions"?
Ink that draws in carbon to become black over time!?
How to handle image attribution > should I think of these as stand alone short blurbs with 1 main image? or a visual essay of sorts?
Do they want to help generate the direction of this?
Schematic Representation of the Educational Process at the BauHaus
Code? Motion? Systems? Type? Color? Society? Power? how to replace the BauHaus ideas/ideals/materials with contemporary ones?
Why are we still on AC power? will our houses start to have a DC and AC breaker box? basically lights and technology are all just DC things now, and we have to convert the power, sometimes several times, to usable DC feeds for our different devices. Same goes with solar arrays, we have to convert them to AC from DC and then back again sometimes multiple times. WHAT ARE WE DOING?
This is a cool Design Fiction prompt.
When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck...
Attributed to Paul Virilio
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect). - Notebook, 1904
Where did my interest in Free Culture come from?
In 2006 I went looking for alternative fuel solutions — I didn't want to rely on fossil fuels for my automobile. This led me to the world of biodiesel and waste vegetable oil conversions … So, in researching this I came across a group called SundaysEnergy in Minneapolis that were doing workshops and such to help others learn to make their own biodiesel AND to convert their own diesel cars to run on vegetable oil in addition to petroleum diesel. The main way we learned and helped each other was through free exchange of information.
(get into this, this is an obvious example of this to most people right?)
Well, we figured our web projects should try to reflect this same open give and take...
Drupal.
Quick explainer...
The end.
(What is the best tool to design this? try to do something with HTML/CSS to pdf?)
Why are lo-fi things so appealing in a world filled with high-tech objects?
Low-tech stuff tethers us. Physically interacting with things make a difference, having an actual INTERFACE is important?
Why is this important to me? what is the hang up on the differences between "sustainable" design's look and feel and "regular" design's?
Okay, so Tony Fry just records himself talking about a topic; minorly edits it with some visual examples; I can do this!? I have plenty of goofy things I've done before and written about, why not just make them videos!? how about my lectures, can I research them a bit better and then just record them!?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq-42ZkG6IpPyNyyEEILTPw/videos
A response to Half of the Earth must be preserved for nature > a really wonderful response.
By Bram Büscher and Robert Fletcher
Why should we go fully solar? is this the right choice? how else can we explore this?
The liberal, whether of a progressive or conservative sort, believes that social problems largely derive from poor individual morals.
Communism is the critique and the antidote to capitalism, with all its problems, including those of social and cultural division.
A liberal believes that capitalism can be humanized. They use a phrase like “crony capitalism” to suggest that capitalism is only bad when bad people are capitalists. A socialist is skeptical about this. A communist doesn’t believe it at all.
A communist is a socialist, but a socialist is not necessarily a communist. A communist believes that socialism is a historical phase that precedes communism and follows capitalism. Socialism is that system where the state is the full or partial owner of all property. Communism is the collective ownership of all property.
In a capitalist economy, we become the servants of a small class of capitalists.
The progressive liberal believes that if we encourage business owners to be better people, this exploitation will not occur. But the communist believes that the exploitation is inevitable.
we also know that we have built this abundance at the cost of environmental devastation.
So doing these things in different ways, it IS important. It shows another way forward, or potentially MANY other ways forward. If we go back to this future speculation diagram, (show the FutureCone), then we see that as potential futures spread out, if we start aiming way outside of the probable, way further out into possible, or even impossible, we start to affect WHAT IS POSSIBLE. So, thinking through these things in whatever utopian lenses you have HELPS everyone else... ???
Designing, like writing, can help to explain or illuminate or clarify a position. In this context, that is what I am referring to: the power of design to make more clear, more understandable, more impactful one's actions or ideologies.
I would prefer that this is what students take away from design schooling: Design is a medium for self-expression and intellectual inquiry. The same things you might learn in a design classroom around how to, based on your contexts, your way of seeing or experiencing the world, can still be turned onto industry at large, sure. But knowing how to do "status quo" designing, I mean, what is the use of that!?
https://www.are.na/block/7620741
Is this usefully resaid as Doing Design is Important; Being a Designer is not.??
Copied from https://mike-burns.com/gone.html – by Mike Burns
For years — since approximately 1999 — I've had a Web site and, in general, been enthusiastic about the Web. I posted links to Del.icio.us, events to Upcoming, photos to Flickr; each of those services were great at decentralization and integration, and I loved them for that.
The Web has changed, of course. It'd be strange if it hadn't. Those services were bought and killed, along with their data. Flickr still exists but focuses on being a destination instead of integration. The Web grew up, cut its hair, got a job. Hey, so did I. The Web grew excited about centralization, ownership, silos, user accounts. (Hey — I didn't!)
Stop me if you know this one: the Web exploded in popularity. That's rad. What once seemed like a few people reading a thing, and what once seemed like a relatively small group of nerds putting high effort into content, is now everyone, all the time, shouting into the ephemeral, manufactured fog.
Previously: I'd post something, my friends would see it, maybe a few strangers would stumble onto it, it'd get discussed in IRC channels, mailing lists, other blogs, and there it would remain, a part of the library of documents that makes up the Web. As it aged, more people would trip across it.
Now: if I post, it affects my SEO. Mostly strangers see it. As it ages, fewer people see it. Do I post to my Web site, to Twitter, to Tumblr, to Facebook, to the silo of the week? Which audience is appropriate? In which circles will it affect my reputation, and in which direction? Will the governments of the world care?
This isn't the Web I signed up for, and my Web site no longer has relevancy to the current Web.
problems with incomplete, shifting, contradictory parameters.
problems that are large, complex, and difficult to find "solutions" for.
Everything here is supposed to be public domain or creative commons.
I do not know
What wisdom is—
But if I knew,
It might be a blue shadow
Where some dumb thing
That never weeps
Creeps away to die.
I do not know
What wisdom is—
But if I knew
It might be a blue shadow.
Wisdom might be trees.How does this connect with Wisdom is a very beautiful word? or Becoming Wise with Krista Tippett??
Wisdom is a very beautiful word for a set of qualities of character that enable us to face reality with serenity, good humour, kindness and resilience. Crucially, nobody is ever born wise. It takes years of experience, advice and learning from our mistakes.
Is this related to Christopher Alexander's Quality Without a Name?
A design studio? A federation of various designers, writers, photographers, and more.
An old and revived idea of Kristian Bjørnard
Collect ideas and references from the reading; Collect visuals from recommended sources; Collect other information as needed.
Deliverables: slideshow with bibliography of sources
An experimental, expressive graphic exploration that responds to and expands on your selected
Things to do with students ?
Was a book, then a second edition of a book, as well as a website. Now this is just sort of dead? defunct? Alex Steffen maintained it all originally. Was the main place to find Sustainable Design kinds of things, sort of like the The Whole Earth Catalog
Everybody’s going carbon neutral these days, from the big boys — Amazon, Microsoft, Unilever, Starbucks, Jetblue — to your favorite outdoor brand, even ski resorts. Probably your neighborhood coffee roaster, too.
What’s not to like? Becoming carbon neutral means cutting greenhouse gas emissions as much as you can, then offsetting what you can’t avoid with measures like tree planting. Seems admirable.
Well, not exactly. Carbon neutrality doesn’t achieve any sort of systemic change. A coal-powered business could be entirely carbon neutral as long it stops some landfill gas in Malaysia from entering the atmosphere equal to the emissions it’s still releasing. American fossil fuel dependence would remain intact, and planet-warming emissions would continue to rise. The only way to fix that is through politics, policymakers and legislation. But distressingly, most businesses don’t want to play in that arena.
Instead, they’re doing exactly what the fossil fuel industry wants: staying in their lane, accepting some blame for a global problem and maintaining the dominance of fossil fuels. They’re well intentioned, sure, but also clueless, even complicit.
Waste Vegetable Oil
What You See Is What You Get
A trope of graphical interfaces particularly for HTML/CSS — you get a window or tool to visually move things around and the program tries its best to write the functional code you need to do that... Usually results in dirty code. Code that contains a hard to reuse amalgam of semantic and structural content and visual design
As opposed to What you see is what you get
What You See Is What You Mean
As opposed to What you see is what you mean
Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.
xml or XML. eXtensible Markup Language. Useful data format, works like HTML, but lets you declare whatever semantic tag names you need/desire. Works well as a markup language for design templates. Makes sense. Good balance of human and machine friendliness.
yaml or YAML. YAML Aint Markup Language.
A semi human friendly data format.
Circumstances for making are constantly changing — equipment, knowledge, materials, and other Constraints are different from scenario-to-scenario and from year-to-year (or lately, on places like the web, week-to-week or even day-to-day). A Good Teacher acknowledges they won’t be able to answer every question, keep up with every new direction, understand every tool, or know every available solution. This is fine. A good teacher is transparent when ignorant, and offers avenues for exploration or further help from elsewhere (perhaps another colleague, the right book from the library, a lead from social or art history, or a well-crafted google search). Being a professional isn’t about knowing everything, it’s about remembering how to find and ask for help.
And! But! Everything Is Connected
If something got decided one day just because it needed to get decided that day, who cares, who don't have to maintain other people's rash discussions or pragmatic short term solutions... why did it get chosen in the first place?

How do we get our cities to create NO waste. Things either need to be fully compostable or fully recycleable. There is no waste.
The 3Rs are related to getting to this place.
Any thing worth learning or bringing in from here?
More from Soren Bjornstad